


Heir Apparent

by MonsieurClavier



Series: Tomarrymort Stories [1]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: All In Voldemort's Head, At the same time, Awkward Conversations, BDSM Fantasies, Comedy of Errors, Crack Treated Seriously, Creepy Fluff, Daddy Issues, Drama, EXTREMELY INTENSE ROMANCE, Enemies to Family to Lovers, Falling In Love, Father-Son Relationship, Fluff and Angst, Fucked Up, Happy Ending, Harry Has No Verbal Filter, Humor, Inappropriate Behavior, Intense, Living Together, M/M, Mutual Pining, Opposites Attract, POV Tom Riddle, POV Voldemort (Harry Potter), Passion, Possessive Behavior, Possessive Tom Riddle, Powerful Harry, Protective Tom Riddle, Pseudo-Incest, Psychopaths In Love, Redemption, Romance, Sane Voldemort (Harry Potter), Sassy Harry Potter, Sexual Tension, Slow Burn, Snark, So Much Touching, Soul Bond, Soulmates, Sugar Daddy, Time Travel, Tom Riddle | Voldemort Adopts Harry Potter, Touching, Twisted and Fluffy Feelings, Voldemort Has No Moral Filter, Warning: May Cause Hysterical Laughter and Uncomfortable Arousal, Yandere, but it's probably at least in the top 5, but not really, daddy voldie, damn voldie why can't you keep your hands off your son, death eater fam, don't just jizz your feelings all over harry, ferrealz dude this is your SON, maybe stop being a creep for like 5 minutes?, okay maybe not the weirdest, so what else is new, the weirdest relationship development you've ever seen, tone it down voldie sheesh
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-07-01
Updated: 2020-12-31
Packaged: 2021-03-04 18:27:06
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 16
Words: 47,945
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25010857
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MonsieurClavier/pseuds/MonsieurClavier
Summary: When a Voldemort in his thirties encounters a time-travelling, seventeen-year-old Harry Potter, he makes a dangerous—and hilarious—assumption. He assumes that Harry is his son. And his son, of course, deserves the very best.A confused Harry plays along for the sake of self-preservation, but living with his “father” is proving to be intolerable in more ways than one.“You are mine,” Voldemort said gently, and smiled when Harry flinched. So the boy did know Voldemort, after all. He knew Voldemort was to be feared. “I will look after you, my own.”“I don’t belong to you,” Harry spat, despite his fear. Oh, what a delight he was! He was no cowering, simpering sycophant, like Voldemort’s other followers; no, this child had a spine of steel. Not many could stand before Voldemort without quailing.“You are my son,” Voldemort declared. “Of course you belong to me. Your every cell, your every fibre, your every heartbeat. You are mine in flesh and blood and soul. You are mine in magic. And you will not deny me.”Now with Chinese, Korean and Portugese translations, and featuring art by Mona and Hypnodisc!
Relationships: Harry Potter/Tom Riddle | Voldemort, Harry Potter/Voldemort
Series: Tomarrymort Stories [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1798186
Comments: 4477
Kudos: 8318
Collections: Alice adore them 🥰, Favourite HP works, Fucking BOPS, HP - 必読 (ひつどく), Harry Potter, Harrymort/Tomarry Recs for the Soul, If I die before this gets completed I will haunt this website, Lady Bibliophile's Collection of Incredible Fanfiction, Mads fave stories ♥️, Reasons I don't have a Life :), Stories That Deserve More, Stories that really butter my bread, TomarryFics, TomarryHarrymort Rec List, Top Fic - HP/LV/TR, Top-tier HP/TMR Fics, i have seen your heart and it is mine, literally amazing i could read these over and over, Работы по миру ГП, ✿♡𝓕𝓪𝓿𝓸𝓻𝓲𝓽𝓮𝓼♡❀





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I’ve made Harry’s mind impervious to Legilimency because it is not, technically, from this time, and the timeline is protecting its secrets by keeping Harry’s mind hidden. Basically, it’s a result of time travel, not of Harry suddenly becoming a master Occlumens.
> 
> In this version of events, Voldemort murdered all the Gaunts, who were the last living Parselmouths aside from himself. No other Parselmouths exist.
> 
> Also, Harry decides to call on his Slytherin side to come up with something vaguely resembling a strategy, even though he’s still a dumbass Gryffindor who can’t stop sassing Voldemort to save his own life. Like. _Literally_ to save his own life. Sigh.
> 
> Oh, and the Explicit rating is for much later on in the story! It’ll be M-rated for most of the chapters. Please note that there will be temporary issues of complicated consent, if not outright dubious consent, as the story progresses.
> 
> There are now [Chinese](https://archiveofourown.org/works/25233001/chapters/61164778), [Korean](https://posty.pe/dgz12h) and [Portugese](https://www.wattpad.com/story/235164623-heir-apparent) translations for readers who prefer those languages.
> 
> Enjoy!

On the eve of his thirty-seventh birthday, Voldemort received an unexpected gift.

He had just returned to Britain after journeying across the world, absorbing magical knowledge from wherever it could be found. Now, more powerful than ever, he envisioned returning to his country a conqueror. Caesar returning to Rome.

But before he reclaimed his throne—and his Death Eaters—he had to unpack. One couldn’t very well unpack some of the most dangerous Dark artefacts known to man in front of lackeys undeserving of the honour… and even more undeserving of one’s trust.

Voldemort didn’t feel much like Caesar here, amongst rotting fabric and cobwebs as thick as knotted wool, but this old corpse of a house would have to do for now. Voldemort was, despite his fearsome reputation, an expert at making do. His years at the orphanage had made him so. He would unpack, rest, prepare, and then publicly announce his return when it was most advantageous to him. It wasn’t like he was in a hurry. He had all the time in the world.

He was immortal, after all.

However, scarcely had Voldemort un-shrunk his belongings before a wind whipped violently through Riddle Manor, and produced, out of nowhere, a boy.

The boy landed on the dusty floor with a muffled, “Ouch!”

It should have been impossible. Voldemort had keyed the wards to let none pass but himself, and the strongest blood magic kept all but his blood-kin at bay. Not that he had any blood-kin. That was the point. He’d killed them all.

Nobody but Voldemort should have been able to Apparate in here. Or use a Portkey, for that matter. Mere space could not be traversed into his home… but time could. And Voldemort had felt, in that sudden wind, the brush of temporal magic. It was some of the most ancient magic there was. Ancient, but unstable.

Voldemort was no fool. His wand was out and stringing the boy up before he could so much as move. That the strings of the magical net were formed of snakes—real, live, writhing snakes—should have had the boy shrieking and shrinking away from them, but all the boy shouted was, “Shit, fuck, let _go_!”

And the snakes let go.

Voldemort stared.

And stared.

And realised, with a slow, shattering sort of shock, that he had just heard Parseltongue.

More staring revealed that the intruder had a mop of dark hair, similar to Voldemort’s but more untidy, a pair of wire-rimmed glasses, and a truly vicious glare. A glare that met Voldemort’s only to skitter away, but not before revealing that _behind_ the glare was a well-guarded mind. Voldemort’s wordless Legilimens slid off the boy’s mind like oil, unable to find a grip. A partial body-bind held the trespasser’s physical form in place, but his mental form was ineffable, shapeless, concealed as if behind a wall of fog.

“And you are?” Voldemort asked politely.

“Your worst nightmare,” the boy snapped, followed by a half-hysterical, “I mean, you’re mine. It’s only fair.”

“Your name,” Voldemort pressed. He added the force of an Imperio to his words, but unsurprisingly, the boy did not submit. An Occlumens of such calibre would have no need to.

“Harry,” the vagrant murmured nonetheless, seeming confused. “What do you mean, my name…?” It was his turn to stare at Voldemort through the manor’s gloom, a gloom that only Voldemort, with his snake-like vision, could penetrate. To the boy, Voldemort must seem more shadow than person, so Voldemort obligingly lit a mild Lumos for the lad’s edification. Harry immediately paled. “Oh, Merlin. You’re not—you’re not—”

“I’m not what?”

The boy shook his head. “Never mind.”

“Would you like to know what year it is?”

Harry glanced up at him, alarmed.

“I can only deduce you are the result of a temporal accident. Using time travel beyond a few hours is not feasible, and impressive as your abilities are, I doubt they can overcome the laws of magic itself. Not unless magic saw fit to overcome them for you.” Keenly observing Harry’s reaction, he said, “It is 1963.”

Harry swayed in place, like he’d been struck. His eyes were wide and horrified. “Fuck me,” he whispered, rather inappropriately.

Voldemort’s nostrils flared in distaste. So his heir lacked the flawless Pureblood manners that should have been drilled into him. No matter. Voldemort would tutor him in etiquette, as his future self had clearly failed to do.

Because it was obvious that this ‘Harry’ was his son.

It all made sense. Here was a boy with immense innate power that bore a strange resemblance to Voldemort’s own magical signature—as though within him was a part of Voldemort himself—and he was a Parselmouth. Voldemort had murdered all the other Parselmouths when he’d disposed of the Gaunts, so the only way another Parselmouth could exist in the future was if Voldemort had sired him. Not to mention how impervious the boy’s mind was to Legilimency; Voldemort had only ever encountered one Occlumens as naturally gifted as that at such a young age, and it had been himself.

While Voldemort had always preferred magical self-perpetuation, it wasn’t out of the question that, sometime in the future, he would decide to further secure his legacy via an heir—a spare body so magically similar to his own that he could possess it permanently if required. An alternative solution to the Horcruxes, and more easily achievable, at that. A potential threat if the heir proved uncooperative, yes, but when had Voldemort ever balked at a challenge? Not to mention what a fascinating experiment it would be to see whether his power and greatness had been inherited by his son. Blood was the best conduit for magic, and this boy had inherited Voldemort’s blood.

So thinking, Voldemort cupped Harry’s chin and found himself pleased by the rich, deep, Slytherin green of Harry’s eyes. The child’s mother must have been well-chosen—before Voldemort killed her, that is. He would never suffer himself to have a wife; he assumed he must have killed the vessel of his heir as soon as said heir was birthed.

“You are mine,” Voldemort said gently, and smiled when Harry flinched. So the boy did know Voldemort, after all. He knew Voldemort was to be feared. “I will look after you, my own.”

“I don’t belong to you,” Harry spat, despite his fear. Oh, what a delight he was! He was no cowering, simpering sycophant, like Voldemort’s other followers; no, this child had a spine of steel. Not many could stand before Voldemort without quailing.

“You are my son,” Voldemort declared. “Of course you belong to me. Your every cell, your every fibre, your every heartbeat. You are mine in flesh and blood and soul. You are mine in magic. And you will not deny me.”

“I—you—what?” Harry gawked at him like Voldemort had lost his mind. He didn’t say anything for so long that Voldemort began to suspect that Harry had at last submitted to him.

But no, Harry hadn’t. Whatever confusion had overcome him fled, followed by a downright Slytherin narrowing of his eyes. So he was about to offer terms. Voldemort knew that expression. “I need to return to my own time,” Harry stated, “and that’ll be in your interests, too. Your future self… needs me to be there. With him. It’s practically destiny. Written in the stars.” He raised his chin defiantly. “So you will find a way to send me back. But until then, you may look after me, and I will… I will tolerate being your ward.”

 _Tolerate_ the blessing of being Voldemort’s heir, as though it was something unwanted? “Are you not proud to be mine?”

“No.” Harry grimaced. “I loathe you. You… You killed my mother.”

Ah. So that was it. An understandable resentment, but too tied to sentimentality. He’d have to train it out of the boy. “You may grieve all you want, child, but do not pass up this opportunity to be taught by the greatest wizard alive. My future self may have failed to instruct you properly, but I will not.”

“You mean, instruct me in murdering Muggleborns?” Harry snorted. “No, thanks.”

Voldemort reared back. “You are pro-Muggle.” _How?_ How could his own offspring talk like that? Think like that?

Harry met his eyes fearlessly. “Yeah. And you’re an arsehole. So what’s new?”

A flash of rage burned through Voldemort like a flash of lightning, and before he knew it, the boy was on the ground, twitching, clawing at himself under the effects of a Cruciatus. He did not scream.

No. Voldemort could not—he _would not_ torture his own spawn, undeserving though that spawn may be. He would not abandon it, either. He was better than the Gaunts. He always would be. And it sickened him, to see a part of himself, an extension of himself, in agony. It was unnatural. Unacceptable. 

So Voldemort lifted the Cruciatus. Harry lay there briefly, panting, before slowly, tortuously getting up. He moved like a poorly-strung marionette, his features still contorted with pain. He shakily adjusted his glasses, which had been knocked askew. Tremors ran through his limbs, but he did not yield to them. He had pride, this one. That, at least, he had gotten from his father.

Harry finally stood, and met Voldemort’s eyes again. Untameable.

And abruptly replacing Voldemort’s rage was a surge of pure _want_. A want for what, he wasn’t sure, but it was there, and it was absolute. Perhaps it was a desire to possess, to own, which would be natural to feel for one’s son.

There was blood on the boy’s mouth, his lips bitten through, but Voldemort did not heal them. It pleased him, somehow, to have left a mark _on_ his mark.

“Wow,” rasped Harry, as though holding in his screams had strained his vocal cords. “Still an arsehole. Good to know.”

Voldemort took a deep breath. “You will watch your words.”

“Or what? You’ll Crucio me again?”

Another deep breath. Patience. Patience. “I will not Crucio you again. Or torture you. For any reason.”

Harry regarded him with palpable disbelief. “Right. Because that’s so in-character for you.”

“Did my future self torture you?”

“Frequently,” said Harry, almost flippantly, and Voldemort’s anger spiked again, at the thought of his future counterpart already having hurt Harry, having claimed him, having seen that blood on his mouth. Again, unacceptable.

“Really.” Voldemort’s tone was flat. “And what had you done to deserve it?”

“Exist, mostly. Future you despises me a lot for not following in your footsteps. For not hating Muggles. You’re a right twat about it, honestly.”

“Do not use that language with me, or—”

“Or what?” Harry repeated. “If the Cruciatus is off the table, what’s on it?”

 _You, stripped of your robes and bound face-down to the table’s four corners, counting the lashes of my whip. Or my hand_. “There’s always corporal punishment.”

Harry looked vaguely ill. “Well, I’m not new to corporal punishment, I’ll have you know. You left me with the most awful Muggles—”

“I left you with _Muggles_?” Was Voldemort’s future self a lunatic?

“You probably hoped I’d grow to hate them like you did if you left me with Muggles who beat me, starved me, and locked me in a cupboard.”

“A cupboard.” That was worse than Wool’s. What had the great Lord Voldemort of the future been thinking, to abandon his own son to a fate worse than Wool’s? Then again, if he had continued to make Horcruxes for another decade or so, he may have lost what remained of his self-restraint. It was a disturbing thought.

Harry, meanwhile, was gaping at him. “You’re angry about that?”

“My own heir should not have been subjected to such indignities.”

“Tell that to future you. He _loves_ putting me through indignities. It’s practically his life’s purpose.”

“My life’s purpose will always be to save the wizarding world from Muggle influence. Nothing else.” Voldemort sighed, attempting to calm his nerves, which felt jagged and sharp, like they’d been sawn off at their most sensitive points. If fatherhood was so emotionally exhausting, no wonder he’d dumped the child far away from him. But it had still been irresponsible. Lacking in foresight. Perhaps that was why Time herself had sent Harry back to him, to help repair the damage his older self had caused. To set Harry back on the right path. Voldemort’s path. “I will convert you to my cause.”

Harry tilted his head cockily. “I accept your challenge.”

“It’s not a _challenge_ , you little—” Voldemort blinked. And studied Harry more closely. “How old are you? Fifteen?”

Harry glared. “Seventeen.”

“You don’t look it.”

“Starved as a child, remember? Besides, you don’t look your age, either. You’re, what, almost forty? But you don’t look a day over twenty-five.”

“Thank you.”

“It wasn’t a compliment, you unnatural creep.”

Patience. _Patience_. Lesser insults had got people dismembered, but Voldemort could not dismember his own progeny. Even he had limits. He gestured at Harry to follow him. “Come. I will feed you, as your Muggle guardians should have done. And then I will find you a comfortable bed, not a cupboard.”

“Converting me isn’t that easy. You reckon that if you treat me better than the literal scum of the earth, that’ll make you a god in my eyes? Please.”

Being a god in Harry’s eyes certainly sounded appealing. But… “I’ll settle for being a father in your eyes.”

Harry laughed, a note of hysteria lacing his laughter. “Luke, I am your father,” he said nonsensically.

“What?”

Harry shrugged. “Muggle thing. You’d hate it.”

A vein throbbed in Voldemort’s temple. “Yes. I would.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just as an additional note, Harry has travelled back in time from shortly before the Battle of Hogwarts, so he hasn’t had his final duel with Voldemort yet, and hasn’t found out that he himself is a Horcrux.
> 
> That’s it! Carry on reading.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Gratuitously Hot Voldemort vs. Gratuitously Bi Harry. Fight!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> say hello to lord “i have vaguely sexy dreams about my son” voldemort

Voldemort woke from an inchoate dream in which Harry was emerging from a lake, smiling. It was nighttime, and the lake reflected the stars perfectly. An obsidian mirror. It was only upon drawing closer that Voldemort realised that the lake of his dream was the Great Lake, and that its black water was in fact blood. Harry’s mouth was wet with it, as though he’d been drinking. His body was bare, like a nymph’s, pale against the dark expanse. He looked happy.

How curious, Voldemort thought drowsily as he awakened, that he should dream about the happiness of another. It had certainly never happened before.

Then again, he’d never had a son before.

And just like that, reality snapped into place. Utter clarity filled his mind, the sort of clarity that he had once had to meditate for hours to achieve, while training himself in Occlumency. But he was no longer a fumbling adolescent with uncontrollable urges. He was Lord Voldemort, and he had an heir.

A strange sense of self-satisfaction blossomed within him. Having an heir was more than just a matter of vanity, and Voldemort would never need an heir to legitimise him. His power was enough for that.

Still, now he had an _heir_ , like proper Purebloods did. Now he belonged in a way he hadn’t before. No more was he Tom Riddle, the pitiful halfblood, orphaned and without a family. Now he was the lord of the Slytherin line, and he had a family. A son. Nobody would dare question who he had fathered his son on, or where he had hidden the child. Those details were irrelevant. Voldemort’s Death Eaters would bow before him, as always. Except that now, they would also bow before his son.

A slow, smug smile curled Voldemort’s mouth, although it likely wasn’t as lovely as Harry’s smile had been in the dream. It was odd to compare himself to another and find himself lacking, in any category. But the truth was the truth, and besides, there was something deeply gratifying about his son having admirable qualities. Not just gratifying—flattering. After all, every achievement of Harry’s was a credit to his father.

Voldemort swept aside his sheets and climbed out of bed. He didn’t bother slipping into a gown; he was clad in nothing but black silk sleep-trousers, and it was enough. Winter though it was—the windows were frosted against a backdrop of pure, sunlit snow—the house was pleasantly toasty, and the floor was warm beneath his unclad feet. There was no dust anymore, no evidence of disuse, and the tapestries and decorations all shone richly with colour and vibrancy. The mahogany panelling and marble flooring were positively radiant with cleanliness.

So the jittery old house-elf he had summoned from the abandoned Gaunt estate last night, to prepare his and Harry’s dinner and to clean Riddle Manor, had clearly done its job. Maybe even overdone it, given how gratefully the elf had blubbered at being pressed back into service.

The kitchen was occupied when Voldemort got there.

But not by the house-elf, no.

By Harry.

The boy must be an early riser indeed, to be up even before Voldemort, who rose earlier than most. It was a pleasing sight, having his own flesh and blood here, in his home, in his kitchen, making tea.

Wait. Making _tea_?

“What are you doing?” Voldemort asked sharply.

Harry whirled around, features already fixed in a rebellious scowl, only to go slack-jawed. The lidded wooden jar he’d been holding fell from his hand and thunked harmlessly onto the tiles.

Voldemort raised his eyebrows. His son was turning a most astonishing shade of red.

“Th-that’s—none of your concern!” Harry spluttered, after too long a silence. “This is my home, too! Or didn’t you mean it when you said that at dinner yesterday?”

“I did,” Voldemort said calmly, somehow finding Harry’s fractiousness more charming after a full night’s sleep. He must’ve been worn thin by travel yesterday, to have gone so far as to Crucio the brat. Admittedly, Voldemort’s moods _had_ been more mercurial ever since he’d made the locket Horcrux. Perhaps he should pause in his Horcrux-making now that he had a backup plan. A backup plan that was currently ogling him with appalled fascination.

“So… you ought to deal with… that.” Harry gestured at Voldemort. “All of that.”

“All of what?”

“ _That_!” Harry waved desperately at Voldemort’s torso. “You’re not living alone anymore! You can’t just parade around half-naked in your silky harem pants or whatever.” Harry bent down to pick up the wooden jar and slammed it down on the kitchen platform. “Bloody male model Dark lords,” he muttered to himself, vengefully. “Grindelwald was pretty, too. That was why Dumbledore—” he cut himself off.

Voldemort’s eyebrows climbed even higher. “No, please, regale me with stories of how Dark lords are inevitably attractive and lead to Dumbledore’s downfall. It’s music to my ears.”

Harry huffed. His blush had largely subsided, although the tips of his ears were still red. He was determinedly not looking at Voldemort, peering instead into a pan of water that he was gradually bringing to a boil on the stove. “I hate making you anything,” he gritted out, “but call it repayment for letting me stay here. I paid my Muggle guardians back with chores, too. You want a cuppa?”

Voldemort frowned. “You should not have to ‘pay’ your guardians ‘back’, Harry.”

“And stars should not fall from the heavens and Dark lords should not have abs, but guess what? Apparently they do.” More resentful muttering was followed by Harry discovering a box of sugar cubes and opening it. “A fresh, hot cuppa brewed by your very own not-so-adoring-but-not-so-hateful-that-he’d-actually-poison-you son.” Finally, he turned and flashed Voldemort a too-wide smile. “Yes or no?”

Voldemort blinked, transfixed by the memory of Harry smiling a different sort of smile in Voldemort’s dream. If smiles could have ‘sorts’ at all. “Poisons do not affect me.”

“Nice to know! I’ll file that away for future reference. Yes. Or. No.”

“Yes,” said Voldemort, more out of curiosity than anything else. “Why didn’t you let the house-elf make our tea? I know you don’t have your wand with you; why go through the trouble of brewing tea the Muggle way when you have a house-elf at your disposal?”

Harry looked at Voldemort disapprovingly. “Flopsy’s got arthritic knees.”

“Flopsy.” It was a word that should never have had to emerge from Lord Voldemort’s mouth. It was beneath him.

“Your house-elf! You set her to cleaning this entire mansion of horrors in one night, and then you expect her to make breakfast? She was fussing about in here when I woke up, but I ordered her to go and rest.”

“Sympathy for a house-elf,” Voldemort said, “and intolerance for your father. Your priorities are somewhat skewed, son of mine.”

“Says the unhinged villain who murders innocents to pass the time.” Harry stirred tea leaves and sugar cubes into the water before adding milk from a charmed, chilled jug. He didn’t even ask how many sugars Voldemort liked. Impolite little rascal.

“Not to pass the time,” Voldemort corrected him. “To make a statement.”

Harry clapped a hand to his chest and gasped. “That’s _much_ better. I’m ever so sorry I called you a villain, Mr. Tall, Dark and Absome!”

“I will dress according to your delicate sensibilities,” Voldemort said in annoyance, and wandlessly summoned his gown—also black, luxurious silk—from his bedroom upstairs. It settled over his shoulders, cool and satiny, but only seemed to discomfit Harry more. “I am not unhinged, nor a villain. I can be reasoned with.”

“As can terrorists.” Harry poured the tea into two cups, sans saucers. Improper, too, not just impolite.

“I am not a mere _terrorist_ ,” Voldemort hissed.

“Hmm.” Harry tapped his lips with a finger, drawing Voldemort’s attention to how well Harry’s magic had healed his injuries overnight; his lips only looked bruised now, and slightly swollen, not torn and bitten. “No, I suppose your Death Eaters are the terrorists. You’re the terrorist mastermind.”

“I am not sure whether to take that as a compliment or an insult.”

“Oh, you know how I want you to take it.” And Harry’s ears were red again. “Um. Tea?” he squeaked, and suddenly, there was a fragrant cup of Darjeeling directly underneath Voldemort’s nose.

Voldemort breathed in its scent. Blew on it. Picked it up and sipped.

It was…

It was delicious, this first cup of tea brewed for him by his son. By someone he could call family. It scorched a path down his gullet and to his gut, where it seemed to heat his very organs—including his barbed, twisting, clenching heart, which was suspended above the fire like a spitted roast. Turning, turning. Burning.

What poison was this? And why was Voldemort affected by it?

It was then that Voldemort noticed Harry still standing beside him, gaping at him.

Voldemort wiped whatever expression he’d been wearing off his face. He was not the type to make a spectacle out of sentiment. Or to have sentiments at all.

“Too much sugar,” he said, somewhat thickly. He cleared his throat. “I prefer my tea with no sugar at all.”

“Yeah,” said Harry, sounding a bit unnerved. “I bet your tastes run so deep into stereotypical villain territory that you’d rather swallow molten bitumen than enjoy a single slice of treacle tart.”

“Treacle tart is a sugary abomination.”

Harry’s mouth dropped open in outrage. “ _You’re_ the abomination. And I’ll take that cup of tea away then, thank you, if it’s too sweet for your lordship.”

“No.” Voldemort’s fingers squeezed around the cup. It was a wonder it didn’t crack, with how tightly he was gripping it. “It is bearable.”

“ _Bearable_. What high praise. Am I bearable, too?”

“Barely,” said Voldemort, and resumed drinking his tea. _Barely_. A vision of Harry from his dream flickered across his mind—bare-skinned, moon-white in the darkness. Luminous.

***

Flopsy had, at some point, appeared in the kitchen and emotionally blackmailed Harry into letting her cook them breakfast. Voldemort had never thought he’d be grateful to a house-elf, but at least she’d saved him the humiliation of eating Harry’s cooking and reacting to it as inexplicably as he’d reacted to the tea.

Still, it had been a novelty to see an heir of Slytherin—because Harry, too, was an heir—stuttering apologies while awkwardly patting a crying house-elf’s shoulder.

Voldemort had much to teach the boy. Including the fact that no son of Voldemort’s need ever apologise to anyone.

Except to Voldemort, of course, for all those insults, including the insult that was Harry’s _shirt_. No sooner did Harry shrug off his sleep-rumpled robes and sling them across a kitchen chair than Voldemort all but leapt up from his.

“What?” Harry took an instinctive step back. So Voldemort’s future self really had tortured Harry on a regular basis; that was not a reaction born of trust. It also explained Harry’s determination to be as un-Voldemort-like as possible; he could hardly be blamed for not wanting to emulate a father who had abused him. Perhaps Voldemort could mend that particular bridge.

“What _is_ that Muggle monstrosity?” Voldemort’s wand-hand twitched. He yearned to set the horrible thing alight. Preferably with Fiendfyre. Only his bridge-mending ambitions stopped him from doing so.

Harry looked down at himself. “This? It’s, er, it’s a T-shirt?”

“That is no ordinary shirt. It is a tent. A shapeless, greyish, ugly _tent_.”

“It was a hand-me-down,” Harry retorted defensively. “From the Muggles who fostered me. Which, by the way, was your fault. So you’re responsible for my fashion faux pas, not me.”

Of all the ridiculous— “It’s pronounced ‘foe pa’, not ‘fox pass’.”

Harry smirked, not embarrassed in the least by his lack of knowledge. Tom Riddle, at that age, would have been mortified. But then, Tom wouldn’t have lacked the knowledge to begin with. “You totally are my ‘foe pa’, aren’t you? My foe and my pa.”

That vein in Voldemort’s temple was throbbing again. “Do not. Ever. Call me pa.”

“How about ‘old man,’ then? Or ‘Papa’? No, wait, wait, I’ve got it. How about ‘Pappy’?”

“I will eviscerate you,” Voldemort enunciated, each vowel rolling off his tongue like a curse. “Slowly.”

“I thought you said you wouldn’t torture me.” The brat looked victorious, as though he now had free reign to offend Voldemort at will. “ _Daddy_.”

Voldemort slapped a hand over Harry’s mouth.

It was primitive, it was Muggle, and Voldemort could have just cast a silencing charm. But this was so much more satisfying. So much more tactile, with Harry’s soft lips against the palm of his hand.

Harry stood there, shocked, eyes wide above Voldemort’s hand, which was broad enough to cover not only Harry’s mouth but half his face.

“The next time you address me as anything other than ‘Voldemort’, ‘my lord’, ‘sir’ or ‘Father’,” Voldemort threatened in his friendliest tone, “it won’t just be your mouth under my hand. Corporal punishment, remember?”

Harry glowered at him wordlessly.

“Well?” Voldemort withdrew his hand, trailing his fingers along Harry’s jaw as he went. “Now, what do we say, Harry?”

“Fuck you,” he ground out.

“No,” Voldemort said patiently, although it was a hot, hungry patience, like a low fever, simmering in his blood. He crowded Harry against the kitchen table, which was now empty of plates and cups thanks to Flopsy having taken them with her when she disappeared. “Say it. _Father._ ”

“I would literally rather die,” Harry responded sweetly.

“Then perhaps you should.”

Voldemort didn’t mean it. It hadn’t even been a day and already he couldn’t imagine not having Harry here, by his side, needling him, provoking him.

But Harry didn’t know that.

Narrowing his eyes, Harry lifted his chin and drawled, downright _imperiously_ , like it was a command and not a concession, “Father.”

Perfect. He was perfect.

This boy. This precious, infuriating—

“We’re going to Diagon Alley,” Voldemort announced, whirling around and heading for the hallway. The palm he’d covered Harry’s lips with was itching, as though Harry had left some trace of himself there, had burrowed his way under Voldemort’s very skin. “You need a wand, and tailored clothing worthy of your name.”

“My name?” Harry scoffed. “You mean yours.”

“Yes,” said Voldemort simply. “Mine.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> only voldemort would be narcissistic enough to be attracted to his own son smh
> 
> but he doesn’t even understand it’s attraction yet honestly what a doofus


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Harry’s milkshake brings all the wands to the yard.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> the whole wand scene that follows (with actual wands, not a euphemism for penises, sorry) relies on my own made-up canon that harry gets more and more powerful with age and is therefore, like, super hot property to wands at the age of seventeen compared to when he was younger (and less powerful). which is complete and utter nonsense as per canon but wth.
> 
> also harry was the master of the elder wand before he time-travelled, and the wands can sense that, so basically harry’s power brings all the wands to the yard.
> 
> yes i said it. all the ~~dicks~~ wands. to the yard.
> 
> or should it be one very specific _dark lord_ to the yard?

Diagon Alley was bustling with witches and wizards of all stripes, but Ollivanders was another world entirely. The moment Voldemort and Harry entered the shop, it was as if a cloak of impenetrable silence had descended upon them.

The dusty old establishment, with its haphazard shelving and its unmistakable aura of ancient magic, had always been one of Voldemort’s favourite places in wizarding Britain.

And Garrick Ollivander, who looked more his age than Voldemort ever would, was one of Voldemort’s favourite people in wizarding Britain. Not only was Voldemort’s first visit to Garrick’s shop a fond memory—this was where he’d been given his _wand_ , his dearest possession—but he respected Garrick’s vast knowledge of magical history and his unrivalled mastery of wandlore.

It was a pity that Garrick was a covert operative of Dumbledore’s. Based on the intelligence that Voldemort had gathered through his own agents, Garrick had been keeping records of the wand cores of Dark wizards, including Death Eaters and their children, for many years, and had been relaying that potentially battle-winning information to Dumbledore.

To know a wizard’s wand core was to know his magical core, and to be better positioned to manipulate it, attack it or deplete it. Garrick should have been sworn to secrecy on this matter—it was a cornerstone of professionalism in the wand-maker community—so his betrayal of this most fundamental of oaths was unfortunate.

Were there a more skilled wand-maker alive, Garrick would now be dead. Still, needs must. Voldemort couldn’t kill him yet. And besides, Voldemort wouldn’t have tolerated an inferior wand-maker crafting his son’s wand.

“Garrick,” Voldemort greeted warmly, his Legilimency stretching out to skim appreciatively over Garrick’s armed fortress of a mind. Not as flawless as Harry’s, but a respectable effort. “A pleasure, as always.”

“Tom,” replied Garrick from behind the counter, somewhat warily. He, too, was familiar with Voldemort, but had the regrettable habit of addressing him by his boyhood name and not by his current title. A failing he had in common with Dumbledore. “I am pleased to see that you are well.” Garrick’s all-seeing eyes flicked over to Harry, probing, questioning. Possibly attempting a Legilimens of his own, futile though the attempt would be. “And this is…?”

“Harrison,” Voldemort offered promptly. “Harrison Gaunt.”

“I’m not a bloody _Harrison_ ,” Harry started on his inevitable tirade, only to be interrupted by Garrick.

“But all the Gaunts are dead,” Garrick said, going pale.

“Yes.” Voldemort smiled—a bright, vicious smile. “They are, aren’t they?”

To his credit, Garrick did not ask any further questions. He knew when to be silent and when to speak, unlike Harry.

So Voldemort spoke to fill the silence. “I am here to buy Harrison a new wand.” Whatever wand Harry had owned in the future may not even have been made by 1963, so it was safer to conduct the search from scratch.

“Wonderful.” Garrick gulped. “I will begin searching for a match immediately.”

“He is my son,” Voldemort proclaimed, with no small amount of pride. “Do not bother searching for cores that cannot support a prodigious magical capacity.”

Harry coughed to conceal a mutter that sounded suspiciously like, “Magical dick-measuring. Wow.”

Voldemort ignored it. His attention was fixed on Garrick, who had gone even paler, and who was probably entertaining desperate fantasies of running to Dumbledore this very instant and informing him of the most devastating blow to Dumbledore’s pro-Muggle agenda since Voldemort’s rise.

_Yes, Albus, there are now two of us. You will have my heir to contend with, in addition to me_. _We will be twice as terrifying together, and twice as unstoppable. Good luck with that._

Harry was glancing between Voldemort and Garrick as though sensing that unspoken dialogue, and it would be no surprise if he did. He was gifted, after all. Like his father. Voldemort saw no need to shield him from scrutiny, or to conceal him from the likes of Dumbledore. No, Voldemort would flaunt Harry as he was meant to be flaunted.

Garrick said no more, vanishing into the bowels of the shop like a spirit.

“Were you threatening him or being polite to him?” Harry asked in an undertone. “I couldn’t tell.”

“That was because I was doing both. Pay attention, Harry. You have much to learn.”

“I’d rather not learn how to be an ambiguous berk, thank you.”

Voldemort’s left eyelid twitched.

Harry grinned.

When Garrick emerged, it was with four elongated boxes. “These are the only four wands I presently have that might support a—a natural talent like yourself, Tom.”

“I think he was about to insult you,” Harry whispered to Voldemort. “But I guess everyone’s being ambiguous today.”

Garrick studied Harry keenly, clearly wondering what dark—or Dark—things Voldemort’s heir was whispering in his father’s ear. Little did Garrick know that said heir had a predilection for sharing his most inane observations.

“Harrison, you may choose from…” Garrick uncovered each box in turn. “Thirteen inches, ebony, with a core of unicorn hair.” It was a smooth and hiltless wand, tapered at the tip, not unlike a unicorn’s horn. “Eleven-and-a-quarter inches, blackthorn, with a dragon heartstring core.” This was an elegant wand, of a gleaming, reddish-black wood, with a handle that curved like a talon. “Twelve inches, acacia, with a core of horned serpent fang.” This slim brown wand had a forked tip, like a snake’s tongue. Attractively Slytherin. “And finally,” Garrick paused to take a breath, “eleven inches, holly, with a core of phoenix feather.” This last wand was deceptively humble, with a less than ornate shape and hilt, but its core Voldemort was intimately familiar with.

“They are all beautiful,” Voldemort said sincerely. And they were. They all radiated magic—thick, pulsing, palpable. If his son were to match with any of these, it would be remarkable. Most wizards and witches would not even be able to hold these wands, let alone use them; merely touching them would burn.

The unicorn hair core, however, would not be very amenable to Dark magic, so Voldemort hoped that it was not his son’s destined wand. The horned serpent core, in contrast, would easily suit a Parselmouth.

But the phoenix feather… oh, the phoenix feather. Dare Voldemort hope?

“Um, I’m sorry to waste your time, Mr. Ollivander,” Harry said, once again apologising as no heir of Voldemort should, “but I already know which of these wands is mine.”

“How…” Garrick’s eyebrows climbed, even as Voldemort warned Harry with a sharp look to not reveal that he was a time traveller. Voldemort had admonished the boy against gossiping about such details right before they’d Apparated to Diagon Alley. Harry ought to remember it. Unless his memory was as short as his height—the only notable trait he _hadn’t_ inherited from his father.

“That’s okay. I’ll show you.” Harry stepped forward and hovered his hand over the ebony, the blackthorn and the acacia wands in turn. Unbelievably, the air above them sparked even without contact and they shifted in their boxes, squirming eagerly.

It was the strangest and most delightful sight Voldemort had ever seen. As a rule, wands were physically inert, and did not interact with humans unless picked up. And yet these wands were interacting with Harry even without being picked up, like they were iron filings and Harry a powerful magnet towards which they were irresistibly drawn.

“See?” Harry said sheepishly, as though accomplishing the impossible was embarrassing. “I mean, they like me—”

Like him? They were infatuated with him. The other boxes, on the shelves surrounding Harry, were beginning to vibrate as well. A low hum was beginning to fill the air. Garrick peered up at the highest shelves, alarmed, and Voldemort got the distinct impression that if Harry stayed in the shop too long, multiple wands would be launching themselves at him like unmarried women at a handsome bachelor.

“—but they’re not mine. This one, though,” and Harry’s hand reached the holly wand, which leapt into his grasp like a sodding broom, “this one’s mine.”

Garrick’s jaw was hanging open. Voldemort had never seen the composed man so shaken.

As for Voldemort? Voldemort’s soul _sang_ , because the moment Harry had touched the holly wand—with the phoenix feather core, oh, Merlin, the _same core_ —Voldemort’s own magic had warmed in response, only to grow hotter, and hotter, until Voldemort felt as if he was in the centre of an incandescent white flame. A flame fanned by Harry’s magic, which, now given form by a wand, undulated through the air like a great serpent, a sparkling basilisk, deadly and colossal and _patient_ , perfection beyond even Voldemort’s imagining.

To know that this was who Harry truly was—beneath all the posturing, all the immaturity, all the recalcitrance—was intoxicating.

And to know that this was Voldemort’s _son_?

That was visceral. Primal. Bestial, even. A base, animal instinct to lay claim. An unnameable urge to consume, to protect, to behold—to admire Harry like a jewel, from all angles and in all possible lights, and to _cut_ him to make him shine brighter. To keep him from all others. To swallow him whole.

There was a deep, painful tug in Voldemort’s gut, like a hook buried in a fish’s throat, hauling him forward.

He realised that he had moved closer to Harry.

And that movement was what broke the proverbial spell.

Noticing Voldemort’s proximity, Harry quickly retracted his magic. It had obviously been overjoyed to have found a wand, and had unwittingly shown itself, but now both it and its master were composing themselves. Gone, alas, was that flagrant display of raw magic, unselfconscious and seductive as it had been.

The thought of all that _power_ contained in Harry’s diminutive frame was inconceivable. Had Voldemort not witnessed it himself, he wouldn’t have believed it.

“Well, Garrick,” said Voldemort to the still-stunned wand-maker, as hundreds of wand boxes hummed and shook around them. “Your wands certainly are… excitable today.”

“That sounded so wrong,” Harry mumbled.

“I…” Garrick beheld Harry in awe, and then Voldemort, who drew himself up proudly at being associated with such an extraordinary son. “You two share not only the same type of wand core, but the very same source. An identical pair. Both your phoenix feathers came from the same phoenix… And it was a phoenix that only gave two feathers. There are none similar to them. Anywhere.”

“Of course,” said Voldemort coolly, like his heart wasn’t hammering anew at the revelation, like he wasn’t thinking about holding Harry’s wand, or having Harry hold his, just to see what would happen. Just to test whether their magics would merge or whether they would amplify each other’s effects, feeding on each other.

Twin wands. A phenomenon virtually unheard of in history. Yet Voldemort had found his twin—his match, his equal—in his son. It was fated. If Voldemort had ever doubted Harry’s veracity as his heir, those doubts were now gone.

“Of course our wands have the same core,” he continued with breezy nonchalance. “We are father and son.”

“Yes,” said Garrick faintly. “It would seem so.” The blackthorn wand was edging stealthily out of its case, as if it was hoping to steal away in Harry’s robes like a stowaway. Garrick noticed and slammed its lid shut on it. “Ahem. Would you like to purchase a holster to go with the wand?”

“Most definitely. My son will not carry his wand around in his pocket like a used handkerchief, of all things.” Voldemort gestured at Harry, who sighed and held his forearm out for a holster fitting.

“I’ve never had a holster,” Harry confessed, and Voldemort suddenly wanted to travel to the future and wring his own counterpart’s neck.

“Sacrilege. You are my heir. You must have the very best.”

“Wouldn’t have pinned you for a doting father,” Harry shot back, as plainly uncomfortable with generosity as any orphan would be—as Tom Riddle had been. But Harry was not an orphan, and that he still saw himself as one was a terrible shame. A shame on Voldemort’s future self, and on his ruination of his own mind and magic through rampant Horcrux-making, to the extent that he could not recognise the potential of his own son. “You never doted on me before.”

Voldemort met Harry’s eyes unflinchingly, for once letting all of his emotions show, including his profound regret and his disappointment in his future choices. “I should have,” he said, and he meant it, like he had never meant anything else. “I will.”

And Harry went pink. Absolutely, utterly pink. It wasn’t just his face or the tips of his ears; even his neck had pinkened. Combined with his wide, startlingly vulnerable green eyes and his soft, slightly parted mouth, he was a vision.

A vision that only Voldemort was permitted to enjoy. When he caught Garrick looking, he barked, “Surely a fitting does not take this long.”

It didn’t.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> edging into sugar daddy territory there voldy
> 
> voldemort has such a boner for magic jfc. put that away sir it’s embarrassing
> 
> btw i know y’all have been wondering what VoldeHot looks like and yes, he still has his nose and is in full-throttle sexy mode. in fact, he looks like this (minus the red eyes unless he’s really, really ~~horny~~ angry):
> 
> that’s the magnificent stefano rossi (gifs from [here](https://youaregoingtobefine.tumblr.com/post/169694470773/stefano-rossi-as-tom-riddle-in-voldemort-origins)), who actually did play tom riddle in a fabulous [fan-made movie](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C6SZa5U8sIg).
> 
> so, uh, you can see why having this total dish walking around shirtless in black silk trousers had that effect on harry in the previous chapter, and why voldemort looking at harry with those gorgeous eyes has that effect on harry _now_.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Voldemort feeds Harry some coq.
> 
> (It means chicken. In French. They’re in a French restaurant. I’m sorry.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WARNING: MISOGYNY. SO MUCH MISOGYNY. THE PUREBLOODS ARE SUCH FUCKING TOOLS LOL
> 
> Also, as the wise and excellent [bakasheep](https://archiveofourown.org/users/bakasheep/pseuds/bakasheep) pointed out, the Muffliato hasn’t yet been invented by Snape, who is currently just a toddler. So let’s just pretend that it was invented earlier, by someone else, shall we? And that it’s a standard spell, albeit tricky to cast. Voldemort, of course, has added lots of bells and whistles of his own to the original spell.
> 
> Thank you again, [bakasheep](https://archiveofourown.org/users/bakasheep/pseuds/bakasheep)!

Recalling his promise to keep Harry fed—Harry was intolerably thin, and Voldemort could not abide his heir resembling a starving street urchin—Voldemort herded his son back out into Diagon Alley and across the crowded street to La Plaque, the finest French restaurant to grace Diagon’s eating district. Voldemort kept his hand on Harry’s back to steer him, and Harry, uncharacteristically enough for him, cooperated. He must be very hungry.

“Thank goodness we got away.” Harry glanced back at Ollivanders dubiously. “I was worried some of those wands were about to indecently assault me.”

“If they had,” Voldemort remarked mildly, “I would have set the shop on fire.”

Harry gawked at him. “Right,” he said, not in agreement but in disbelief. “Centuries of wandcraft. Up in smoke. All because a few wands were being flirty with me?”

Voldemort did not answer. He himself was unsure about why exactly it bothered him so, given that wands were inanimate objects—well, usually inanimate objects, except around Harry—and could not influence Harry or take possession of him as other magical items could. They were not a threat, and Voldemort had even enjoyed watching them tremble for Harry like helpless virgins caressed for the first time.

So many of Voldemort’s impulses contradicted each other in Harry’s presence, as if Voldemort were a compass spinning uncontrollably, no longer sure of true north. It was disconcerting. But it was also, perhaps, understandable; the incident at Ollivanders had revealed to Voldemort that Harry’s magic was strong enough to influence its environment, and Voldemort’s sensitivity to magic had always been extraordinary. No doubt his own magical core was affected by Harry as the wands had been, and was attracted to Harry as the wands had been. It was simple magicophysics. Quite logical.

Besides, discovering that he was a father—and the father of one of the most naturally gifted wizards alive—was bound to change him in ways he could not foresee. If those ways led him to more tactical security and magical potency, especially through some form of magical union with Harry, then would the changes not be worth it?

Voldemort’s ultimate destination was, and always would be, power. His _path_ to power was less important; he was open to changing the steps that got him there, as long as they got him there. Harry’s arrival had opened up a welter of new opportunities, of tantalising new paths to power—some of which were rousing inexplicable emotions in him, yes, but was that not a price he ought to be willing to pay? He’d gone so far as to split his own soul four times, with the Ring, the Diary, the Locket and the Cup, despite great personal cost. Unpredictable transitions were nothing to him. He would conquer them as he always had, and would emerge the victor.

La Plaque was run by the Selwyns, whose intermarriages with French wizarding aristocracy had resulted in immense ancestral wealth, which the family had chosen to invest in fine dining establishments throughout Europe. What the general public didn’t know was that the Selwyns’ restaurants were not merely restaurants, but operational hubs for Voldemort’s Death Eaters, and safe meeting places for Dark Pureblood families and their allies.

“Erm…” Harry shrank backwards as they approached the restaurant’s front door, where a young witch in a crisp white uniform stood to greet guests. An archway of white roses soared overhead, emitting a heady fragrance and threaded through with golden vines, from which sprouted decorative gilt leaves. “Maybe this is… Isn’t this a bit too… fancy?”

“Fancy?” Voldemort did not permit Harry to escape, using the hand on Harry’s back to gently but firmly propel him towards the entrance. The witch bobbed a curtsey, lowering her eyes as soon as she recognised Voldemort. It was the understated decorum of La Plaque’s staff, along with their impeccable manners, that endeared the restaurant to him.

“Marise,” said Voldemort graciously. “A table for two, please.”

The witch curtseyed again, not even daring to sneak a peek at Voldemort’s mysterious companion. “Oui, my lord. Kindly follow me.”

Harry’s discomfort only grew more evident as they followed Marise inside. Beyond the rose-festooned archway stretched an expanse of gold-veined white marble. It was vaster than what should have been possible when viewed from the outside, and was supported by Doric pillars, around which twined yet more white roses. The area was sparsely dotted with rectangular marble plinths that functioned as tables, and at which sat diners who were not readily identifiable. Shimmering, semi-transparent Disillusionment charms obscured them from view, like sheer curtains of silk. An indistinct murmur filled the space, with Muffling charms guaranteeing that no single word was decipherable.

“This is the most luxurious shady joint I’ve ever seen,” Harry observed as Marise led them to a table even farther from the others, pulled out chairs for them to sit on, and vanished to fetch La Plaque’s complimentary bottle of elf-made wine. “She calls you ‘my lord’, not ‘sir’ like in a normal restaurant. And the privacy wards are bit much, aren’t they? What’re the patrons here doing, plotting world domination?”

“Indeed,” Voldemort replied, amused. “This is the only venue in Diagon Alley that caters to the Pureblood desire for privacy, although it does not, for the sake of obeying utterly nonsensical Ministry regulations against anti-Muggleborn discrimination, bar non-Purebloods from entry.”

“Nonsensical? Those regulations are there to protect non-Pureblood rights.” Harry grimaced. “Basically, I’m about to have lunch in an extremist organisation disguised as a restaurant.”

“Correct.” Voldemort directed Marise to pour them wine in exquisite crystal goblets after she shimmered back in through their table’s Disillusionment charm. Voldemort had wandlessly augmented the wards to ensure maximum protection from stray spells, including an enhanced Muffliato to completely mute their conversation, and had modified the Disillusionment charm so that any Death Eaters present would be able to see him and Harry. He might as well announce his return to his followers if he’d announced it to Dumbledore.

After Marise left, Harry said, “You’re such a hypocrite. If this place blocked non-Purebloods from entry, it’d block us out, too.”

Voldemort froze, goblet halfway to his mouth.

“Yes, I know you’re a halfblood.” Harry rolled his eyes. “Honestly, did you think you’d hidden it from me and raised me as some proper little Pureblood ponce? No, you left me with Muggles instead, where I was dirt-poor and bruised and as non-poncy as I could get. And you were always terrible at keeping secrets from me whenever we did meet, so I found out. I know everything there is to know about you. Wool’s Orphanage. The Horcruxes. Your boggart. The fact that your dad was a Muggle. Everything.” He sighed. “Why do you reckon I’m pro-Muggle? If it weren’t for Muggles, _my father wouldn’t exist_.”

Voldemort’s heart palpitated oddly. Confusingly. So Harry was pro-Muggle because—because he cared about his father, despite all that had transpired between them. Cared for _that brute_ , from the future… more, perhaps, than he did for the Voldemort sitting across from him now. Or perhaps he cared for them both equally. Voldemort could fathom no way of asking that question that wasn’t humiliatingly revealing, so he didn’t ask it.

Or Harry could have just meant that his own existence would have been in jeopardy without a father, which was more sensible. That must be what he had meant, not that Voldemort’s existence specifically mattered to him.

But when had Harry ever been sensible? Even in their short acquaintance, it had become clear to Voldemort that Harry hadn’t a sensible bone in his body. He was humble before house-elves, sheepish around his own power, and sentimental about a mother he’d never even met. He probably _did_ hold some affection for his violent father, despite that affection not being particularly rational.

“Er,” said Harry, after two scrolls of thick, creamy, gold-leaf parchment appeared on their table and unrolled to reveal themselves to be menus. “I have no idea what any of this is. I can’t even read it, it’s in ruddy French. Just order me some chicken, would you? I don’t want some gross French snail pudding.” He shuddered. “Just, no.”

Voldemort frowned. “Your palate requires refinement, Harry.”

“And let me guess, ‘refining’ me is stage one in your long-term ‘brainwash Harry’ plan?”

“I would rather term it constructive parenting.”

Harry choked on his wine. And spluttered. “Con—” A wheeze escaped him. “Construc—” He laughed.

Voldemort gazed at him greedily, having never seen Harry laugh before. Voldemort noticed how laughter eased the tension that Harry perpetually bore in his face and in his frame. Harry’s laugh was warm and light, a gossamer thing as transparent as a dragonfly’s wing—fragile, lovely, mesmerising. At the sound of it, a deep fissure cracked open in Voldemort’s stony depths, and welled up with something as molten as lava and as likely to consume all in its path.

“This wine is amazing.” Harry had finally calmed himself. “But you can’t expect me to keep it down if you say stuff like—”

They were interrupted by the waitress. The girl bobbed another curtsey upon re-entering their bubble.

Voldemort decided not to order entrées, because then the more filling mains would take a good forty-five minutes to arrive, and Harry was too hungry to sit around waiting with a grumbling stomach. “We are ready to order, Marise. A _coq au vin_ for my companion, a cognac shrimp with _beurre blanc_ sauce for myself, and a side of _gratin dauphinois_ for us to share. We’ll order our desserts later.”

Harry was spluttering again. “Did you just say co—”

“That will be all,” Voldemort gritted out to Marise through his teeth. If only his son would develop some refinement, perhaps he would be easier to introduce to the upper echelons of Pureblood society.

As Voldemort fully intended to do.

The introduction took place sooner than Voldemort had calculated, however.

Voldemort and Harry had just finished their main courses, with Harry reacting rather distractingly to his own—apparently the _coq au vin_ was delicious enough to evoke multiple appreciative noises—when Macarius Mulciber presented himself at their table, ducking past their wards after Voldemort waved him in. Mulciber bowed slavishly, subserviently, as all the Death Eaters knew to do if they wished to avoid their master’s ire.

“My lord,” said Mulciber with genuine happiness. He must be anticipating more raids on Muggle townships now that his lord had returned. “I had not expected to see you at La Plaque today. I am brunching with the Minister of Internal Affairs, and you will be pleased to hear that he is amenable to some of our proposals on Muggleborn monitoring.”

“Excellent,” Voldemort approved, even as Harry—who was misguidedly pro-Muggle—scowled.

“And may I ask who this is?” Mulciber’s sly eyes swept up and down Harry’s form far too intrusively, doubtless cataloguing Harry’s many pleasing aesthetic qualities, because his smile acquired a predatory hook. “How positively enchanting. Given that he is dining with you, my lord, I am sure he is the scion of a powerful Dark family.”

“You are not wrong.” Under the table, Voldemort’s wand slid into his hand, the holster sensing his intentions and automatically releasing it into his grip. He was only tolerating Mulciber’s crassness because Mulciber was valuable to him, but if he continued ogling Harry…

Mucliber had been unmarried ever since his wife had allegedly died in childbirth. It had been murder, of course, as Voldemort had gleaned from Mulciber’s inadequately occluded mind; many Pureblood men who were not inclined towards women got rid of their wives as soon as the requisite heir was born, so that they could then proceed to court and wed according to their preferences. Ironic, how murder was deemed less scandalous than divorce.

“Allow me to introduce myself,” Mulciber said to Harry, obviously hoping to ingratiate himself with the heir of the newest Dark family to be recruited by Voldemort, and just as obviously hoping to court a beautiful youth to warm his bed and raise his child. “I am Macarius, of the ancient and most noble House of Mulciber. We are, as you know, of the Sacred Twenty-Eight. Alas, I am currently without a spouse, but…” And here, Mulciber dared to _reach for Harry’s left hand_ , lifting it to his lips for a kiss.

A kiss that never happened. Harry never received Mulciber’s declaration of courtship, because, before Mulciber’s filthy, undeserving mouth could get anywhere near Harry, Voldemort was standing with his wand at Mulciber’s neck.

“Unhand him,” Voldemort snarled, “or I will expel your intestines through your _throat_.”

Mulciber dropped Harry’s hand like it was on fire, and immediately fell to his knees.

Voldemort’s vision tunnelled to where his wand was still digging into Mulciber’s jugular. His psyche was throbbing with images of tearing that jugular open, of smashing Muciber’s perfectly coiffed head against the table again and again until it split like an overripe fruit and spilled Mulciber’s deficient brains over the spotless white marble.

Voldemort’s magic rose from within him, black and ravenous as a Lethifold. There was a buzz in his ears that resolved into Mulciber’s frantic begging and Harry’s soothing words. Oh. Harry was standing, too. Close to Voldemort. Touching him. A hand on Voldemort’s shoulder, and Harry’s voice low and calm, saying, “It’s all right. I’m all right. He meant no harm.”

Was the mere concept of taking Harry to bed not _harm_? Voldemort would destroy all who sought to defile his son. He would kill them. Torture them. Burn them—

“I’m all right,” Harry repeated, not afraid of Voldemort in the slightest. Harry’s magic reached out to entwine with his, a soft brightness that gradually filtered through the darkness surrounding Voldemort, as sunlight filtered through a stormcloud.

Voldemort blinked. His rage was receding, the boiling tsunami of his wrath rolling back out to sea, away from him.

His rage had never receded before. Not until it had been fed on another’s pain or death.

“Please,” Harry whispered, only for Voldemort’s ears. “Father.”

And Voldemort’s entire being juddered, like the hull of an old warship creaking amid roiling waves. An infinite heat unfurled within him, flooding his every cell, and suddenly Mucliber seemed small in comparison, insignificant, an ant before the enormity of what Harry was to him, of what Harry was making him feel.

Voldemort planted a boot on Mulciber’s bowed head, pushing downwards until he was within inches of snapping the braggart’s neck.

“You will survive today,” Voldemort hissed, “but only because my son has taken mercy on you.”

Mulciber’s face drained. Ah, so now he comprehended the magnitude of his mistake. Courting a young, unwed and very available Pureblood heir was acceptable; courting Lord Voldemort’s own heir was not.

“Leave, before I reconsider.”

Mulciber fled, still cowering, right out of the restaurant. Abandoning his precious Minister of Internal Affairs.

“Are you okay?” Harry asked Voldemort. Ludicrous. Nobody had ever dared to ask him that.

Voldemort reclaimed his seat gracefully. The madness had not quite left him; his appetite for ripping and rending was only momentarily suppressed. “I am well.”

Harry slowly sat back down on his own chair, keeping his perceptive green eyes on Voldemort all the while. “We should leave. You can rest at home.”

“I don’t need _rest_ , I need—” _for you to touch me again. Ground me. Remind me that I am a man as much as I am a beast_. “And what of you? Are you well? Mulciber had… indecent designs on you, as you would have noticed, and you must have found them distressing.”

“He wasn’t that bad. At least he didn’t try to poison me. I got a love potion slipped to me once—”

“A _love potion_?” And there was his wrath, returning on cue.

“Never mind,” Harry said quickly. “I didn’t drink it in the end. A friend of mine ended up drinking it by accident.”

“And where was I in the midst of all this? What did my future self do in retaliation for the potion?”

“Retaliation? What retaliation?” Harry chuckled bitterly. “Let’s just say you weren’t there to protect me.”

“I was a fool,” Voldemort spat, wishing he could murder his future self. Messily. “Anything could have happened to you. You could have been _raped_.”

Harry regarded Voldemort strangely. “You… You really care about me, don’t you? Like really. Not just pretending, although I wouldn’t know if you were.”

“I am not,” Voldemort grated harshly, “pretending. You are my heir. You are mine to protect.”

“Fuck.” Harry ran his fingers through his hair. “It’s so weird that you’re protective of me. It’s like I’m going crazy.”

“You are not ‘going crazy’. I am not who I will be in your time. And now, I can ensure that I never will be.”

Harry goggled at him. “You—what does that mean? You’ll stop making Horcruxes?”

“Perhaps.” Voldemort had already been contemplating it. “But irrespective of my methods, I will assure your safety. No more shall you be assailed by unwanted suitors.” He surveyed the other tables, the other Purebloods to whom Harry would be fair game. “If they so much as touch you…” Voldemort could feel his eyes turning red again, the bleeding of his magic into his every pore, unstoppable. “If they so much as _look_ at you…”

Harry’s hand shot out across the table to grab Voldemort’s arm, and it was only Harry’s tangible panic that halted Voldemort’s magic in its tracks. “Wait. Wait. Relax. Let’s not slaughter all the fifty or so people in this nice restaurant, shall we? Not everyone who looks at me wants to—to make me their child bride or whatever.” Harry laughed uncomfortably. “Merlin, it’s not like I’m some kind of—”

“Some kind of what?” Voldemort asked quietly. Dangerously.

Harry’s eyes were wide. “Desirable entity?” he squeaked.

“You are desirable both magically and physically. Every wand in Ollivanders would have attached itself to you given the chance. Mulciber would have initiated a courtship ritual with you had I not made it plain to him that, were he to besmirch you with his hands, I would _cut them off and feed them to him_.” Voldemort sucked in a calming breath. And a second. And a third, until the ever-present urge to maim had faded back to its usual simmer. “You have power and beauty, Harry, and there is nothing more desirable to humans than a combination of both.”

“B-beauty?” Harry stuttered, and did not, interestingly, contest the point about power. “It’s not all that important to everyone. Maybe… Maybe some people just prefer homeliness and a sweet disposition?”

“Then that is their definition of beauty. There is no escaping beauty, Harry. It is an unalterable law of the universe, an eternal constant. It is there in the midnight sky and in the hue of your eyes. It is there in magic and in those who know how to wield it. Only the ignorant would deny beauty. It rules all of us, and our actions, until and beyond the grave. We are all its subjects, whether we admit it or not.”

“Even you?” Harry’s lips twitched in a weak smile. His eyes had widened even further at Voldemort’s remark on their colour—and why not? It was true. “You, who are nobody’s subject? Aren’t you too proud to submit to anyone?”

“Any _one_ , yes. No human shall ever reign over me.” Voldemort shrugged, loose and easy. “But to harness the forces of the universe, one must first respect them, much as one must respect a Hippogriff if one is to attempt riding it. Beauty, magic, truth, death… these are the wild forces that buffet us like hurricanes, and lesser mortals are swept about by them like dust-motes by a broom. But I,” Voldemort leaned forward, “and _you_ , Harry, understand and respect those forces enough to forge an alliance with them, or to, at the very least, ask them for a favour or two.”

Harry’s expression shuttered. “Like you asked death for a favour with your Horcruxes? For it to leave you alone? Please. That wasn’t a favour, that was you trying to make death _kneel_. And how do you suppose a ‘wild force’ would react to that?”

Voldemort stared at Harry. And stared at him. He thought, objectively, about the fact that this boy was only seventeen. That he had grown up being abused by Muggles and by the torments of an inconstant, tyrannical father. That he could make every wand in Ollivanders his, but only chose the one that truly belonged to him. That he could make everybody in this building bow to him, but would not subject them to the indignity of bowing. 

That he had clearly faced mortality and yet did not flinch from it.

Unlike his father, who had flinched. Unlike his father, who had _feared_.

Voldemort stared at his son’s strength, at his beauty, and found no answer within himself that was worthy of the question Harry had asked him.

Yes, Harry was an ideal heir, but it wasn’t because he was a copy of the original. It was because he was an _improvement_.

And that realisation shattered the most central belief that Voldemort—that Tom—had ever held about himself.

The belief that he had been, and always would be, the best.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> voldemort: *decides to introduce harry to the death eaters*
> 
> also voldemort: *kills all the death eaters for having been introduced to harry*


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Voldemort confuses being a daddy with being a sugar daddy.
> 
> Also: Demisexual Voldie! (Like me!) Which explains why he doesn’t recognise his own horniness for Harry; he’s never been so attracted to someone before. While he has slept with people, he’s never experienced... passion? So this is all very new to him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> what harry should be saying: heck yes spend all your money on me. i deserve it after everything you’ve put me through
> 
> what harry actually says: fuck off i don’t need your money. stop spending cash on me. i’ve never had someone literally try to buy my affection and it’s freaking me out. just stop
> 
> voldemort: :(
> 
> harry:
> 
> voldemort: :(((((((
> 
> harry: oh OKAY. but just a little bit, all right?
> 
> voldemort: *buys harry an entire island nation as well as a magical lamborghini to explore it in*

Diagon Alley was blinding, the sunlight dazzling upon fresh-fallen snow. A new world, and Voldemort had never felt so like a newborn—barely formed and stripped of his defenses. Helpless in ways he’d never been, in ways that had nothing to do with power or knowledge.

The Lord Voldemort who left La Plaque that day was a changed man. Or, more precisely, a _changing_ man.

He was still fractured and unstable, the pieces of himself that he’d held together with sheer will ever since childhood coming apart, but they weren’t spinning into chaos so much as rearranging themselves into a baffling new order. Voldemort wasn’t yet certain of what that new order was, except that it revolved around Harry like planets revolved around a blazing star, irresistibly drawn in by its gravity.

Too close, and they’d burn to ash. But too far, and they’d be so unbearably cold. Inert. The worst sort of death.

That Voldemort had become aware of more than one sort of death was already disorienting. There was the death of the body, which he’d always fought against—but now there seemed to be another sort of death, another enemy, and it lurked in the pockets of emptiness when Harry was not near enough to see, to hear, to touch. It was a vacuum with only Voldemort in it. And he had never before found his own company inadequate, but now, he knew, it was. Everything was inadequate compared to Harry, just as everything was incomplete without Harry. Dim, somehow. Devoid of light. Unanimated. Unfulfilled.

Wasted time.

What use was immortality, if it was lived in a vacuum? Without Harry by his side?

Harry, who now stood under the falling snow with his spectacles off, his head tipped back and his eyes closed, smiling as snowflakes dusted his eyelashes.

Voldemort watched, transfixed. This moment had no tactical significance that he could ascribe to it; there was no reason the sight of Harry under the snow should be so arresting. Voldemort was blinded again, not by the sunlight but by, it seemed, the sun itself.

He had been living for years in the shadows—sunless, lightless, with nothing but bloodlust to heat his veins, and he’d never realised it. The profundity of his solitude. He had been a chasm in the shape of a man. A monument to nothingness. A hollow temple in a windswept wasteland, godless and steeped in ice.

And now Harry’s fullness was almost too much for him, the abyss in Voldemort suddenly overflowing, his frostbitten limbs stinging and searing back to life.

It hurt, more than anything had in years, but Voldemort was not afraid.

Was this what Harry felt like, always? Unafraid?

“What?” said Harry when he opened his eyes, still smiling, and put on his glasses back on. “Oh, come on, you must have done this as a boy.”

Had he? He couldn’t remember. Voldemort’s childhood seemed like a long, dark shadow, stretching out behind him. Finally behind him. No longer suffusing his every decision, his every action.

Where had he been, for all these decades? Had he still been back at Wool’s, even when holding court at Malfoy Manor and presiding over the fate of the wizarding world? Why had he compelled his mind to live in a bomb shelter—in a constant fear of death—even though his body had survived?

“Have you forgotten?” Harry huffed incredulously. “It’s easy. Close your eyes for a change, Mister Paranoid. Just _feel_ the snow. It’s not that complicated.”

And Voldemort’s eyes fluttered shut, just like that. Perhaps Harry didn’t know what a statement of trust it was for Voldemort to shut his eyes to potential foes, in broad daylight, on a crowded street. But Voldemort had faith in Harry’s power, and in Harry’s fundamental compassion, even towards the father that had mistreated him. Harry would not let him come to harm.

The snowfall was as downy as a fistful of feathers. Each flake was as insubstantial as a cloud, a misty not-quite-thereness, a cool relief against his face. His experience of the sensation was absolute, centred, _present_. How much of his existence had he not been present for?

Only Harry’s snicker prompted him to open his eyes.

“You’ve—you’ve got a snowflake melting _right_ on the tip of your nose.” Harry pointed at it, rude as ever. “Which is bright pink, by the way.”

“So are your cheeks. And your ears.” Voldemort unwound his scarf and wrapped it around Harry’s neck instead. Harry appeared startled by the gesture. Had Harry’s previous guardians not even shown him such a simple gesture of kindness? Again, Voldemort loathed his future self for robbing Harry of that kindness, of all that Voldemort himself had been robbed of. His son should have had it better. He deserved better. “You’ve got a wand,” Voldemort reminded Harry, “so you ought to cast a warming charm on your clothes; it’ll last longer on you if you cast it yourself.”

Harry looked down at his feet. “Your scarf’s warm enough,” he mumbled. And then he squeezed his eyes shut and said, “ _Shit_.”

It was Voldemort’s turn to be startled. “What? What happened?”

“I just… I’m such an idiot. I can’t believe—I mean, you’re _Voldemort_. And you wrap a scarf around my neck and suddenly I think you’re an okay bloke? That you’re even—” Harry shook his head.

“Nice?” Voldemort hazarded. It certainly wasn’t a word that suited him. Not now, and presumably not in the future.

“Sweet,” Harry amended, and immediately smacked himself on the forehead. Rather loudly. “Get a grip, Harry! The fact that he’s got a pink nose has no bearing whatsoever on anything. God, you’re so stupid.”

Voldemort’s mouth twitched in a most unusual manner.

Harry stared at it. “Fuck,” he said faintly.

Voldemort assured himself that he had not smiled. Lord Voldemort did not _smile_ , not a true smile that was genuine and without menace. The very notion was absurd. “You do realise,” Voldemort patted the knot of the scarf to secure it under Harry’s chin, “that talking to oneself is a poor indicator of mental health.”

“Oh, I know I’m delusional, you don’t have to tell me. And I am _not_ going to boop you on the nose.”

Voldemort’s brows climbed. That had never been done before; likely because, had anybody done it, they would be dead. “I never suggested it.”

“Good,” said Harry fiercely. “Because then I’d definitely be mental. Just because you buy me things and insist on feeding me like an anxious mother hen and protect me from a Death Eater’s wiles does not mean you aren’t also the maniac who nearly mass-murdered a restaurant full of people!” Harry caught his breath after that impressive rant. “So. Back home? Because even you can’t be rich enough to keep buying me stuff indefinitely.”

Voldemort snagged Harry’s elbow and began dragging him in the direction of Tabitha’s Tailoring. “Would you like to test that theory?”

“No!” Harry attempted to yank himself free, to no avail. “We’re going back. Being in the snow is addling my brain.”

“Really? I hadn’t noticed.”

“Ha ha, very funny.” Harry gave up struggling, but not arguing. “I don’t need new robes _right now_. It’s not going to kill me to not look like Malfoy Junior for a day.”

“Ah, so the Malfoys are just as prone to preening in the future as they are in the present.”

“You have no idea. I actually reckon it gets worse with every generation.”

“It could be a family curse,” Voldemort theorised.

Harry snickered again. “Stop. You’re not supposed to make me laugh. You did that at La Plack, too. Unfair.”

“La Plaque,” Voldemort corrected, then enquired, “How is it unfair?”

“It just is,” Harry said mulishly. “Look, if you’re going to buy me clothes, at least have a limit on how much you’re going to spend. It’s called a budget. Ever heard of it?”

“As a once-impoverished orphan, I can say that I have.”

Harry winced. “Damn. I’m sorry. I didn’t—”

Voldemort stopped and glared down at Harry. “Never apologise to me.”

“That,” Harry blinked up at him, “is not a sentence I ever thought I’d hear from you.”

Because Voldemort’s future incarnation had clearly instilled in Harry a belief in Harry’s own innate deficiency, in his wrongness. It was as detestable as when the Muggles at Wool’s Orphanage had done it to Tom. That Voldemort could ever have done that to another child—to a _magical child_ , to his own child—was unforgivable. To have done that to a child as exceptional as Harry was monstrous.

“Hey,” Harry cajoled in a low tone. A consoling tone, as if it were his responsibility to console the father who had failed him. “Don’t hate yourself for what you haven’t even done. Trust me. It’s pointless.” Harry glanced at the door to Tabitha’s Tailoring, which they were now in front of, and sighed. “Fine. Buy me some swanky robes if it cheers you up.”

“Why, Harry,” Voldemort exclaimed, scandalised. “Has every Knut you have permitted me to spend on you been nothing but a pity-buck?” It was a pun that should have been beneath him, but from what he had just seen, his dignity was not what would make Harry laugh.

And Harry did. He burst into raucous laughter while repeatedly smacking Voldemort on the arm, which Voldemort endured as fair payment for hearing that wonderful sound again. “I told you not to make me laugh!” Harry accused, manfully trying to compose himself. “Also, that was very inappropriate humour for a father.”

“Was it?” Voldemort took advantage of Harry’s momentary distraction to manoeuvre the boy into Tabitha’s. The brass bell above the door dinged as they entered. The store’s front racks were full of discounted, readymade robes on sale, but there were some promising custom designs showcased on the far wall.

Harry boggled at the store’s currently deserted interior; most of the clientele was still out having lunch. “Wow, this looks just like Mada—no, it _is_ the same shop I go to in my time! The layout’s practically the same. Where the changing rooms are, and the sales counter, and the windows… But the shop’s name is different. I guess it must have been owned by this Tabitha person first.”

“This ‘Tabitha person’,” Voldemort warned Harry, “is a typhoon pretending to be a woman. I suggest avoiding getting her to measure you if you do not want your fashion sense critiqued with irreproachable politeness while having sharp needles wielded against you like not-so-subtle threats.”

The fondness in Voldemort’s description of her must have leaked through, because Harry frowned. “So basically, your type, then.”

“Tabitha,” Voldemort responded, “is not my type. Nobody is; I find most humans terribly insipid.”

“Gentlemen,” said an implacable, emotionless voice, and they turned to see a squat, brawny woman of about fifty, with ashy grey hair cut short around her skull, and a charcoal-grey waistcoat over a full-sleeved white shirt and matching grey trousers. She was impeccable. A measuring tape was draped docilely around her shoulders, not even daring to misbehave as so many magical objects did, and a silver pocket-watch hung from a chain attached to her waistcoat. A chequered black bowtie completed the ensemble.

“That,” Harry whispered to Voldemort in another fit of sharing inanities, “is the most lesbian lesbian I’ve ever seen.”

“Thank you,” she said just as tonelessly, and Harry jumped. “My hearing’s sharper than most,” she explained. “Licensed hawk Animagus.”

“That’s _brilliant_!” Harry gushed, and a flare of annoyance flashed through Voldemort. They were here to conduct business, not to admire each other’s Transfiguration abilities. Although it was a timely reminder for Voldemort to reinforce the modified Muffliato that still lingered about him and Harry, preventing eavesdroppers—including Animagi—from hearing any conversation related to time travel or to the Dark Arts.

“Indeed,” said Tabitha without inflection, unmoved by Harry’s hero worship. “Sir,” she greeted Voldemort, not deigning to call him ‘my lord’, like the staff of La Plaque did, nor ‘Tom’, like Garrick did. She had known him as Tom Riddle when he’d bought the cheapest secondhand school robes from her, but he had been just ‘sir’ to her then, too, and she was no more or less respectful of him today. In fact, she had been the first person to ever call Tom ‘sir’, even when he’d been eleven and ignorant of the magical world.

Voldemort had not forgotten. He never forgot those to whom he owed debts—in Tabitha’s case, the debt of having been treated with respect regardless of being a halfblood, an unknown, an orphan, a peasant, or a Slytherin. No Pureblood lordling had ever got more deference from Tabitha than Tom had.

“Tabitha,” he replied. “I see you are well. And what of your mousy little assistant?”

At this, Tabitha showed her first emotion, but it flickered across her flinty features too quickly to be identified. “MALKIN!” she bellowed, and a tiny young woman came skittering out of the back office, clad in a humble blue dress, with her own measuring tape all but twisting itself into a noose around her neck.

Tabitha tsked. And gave her assistant’s measuring tape a highly effective glower that had it quailing before lying flat across the assistant’s hair. What had her name been, again? Molly? Milly? Whoever she was, Harry was goggling at her as though he recognised her from the future. Perhaps she was the eventual proprietress of the shop, as Harry had implied.

“Please call me ‘Minnie’, mistress,” the assistant said doggedly for what must have been the millionth time, for Voldemort recalled hearing that request before. And that was five years ago.

“I am your boss, not your friend. We have a returning client and a new client. See to them.” Tabitha fixed Voldemort with a hawkish eye that had in it a hint of gold-tinged ochre. “Should you or your ward need my assistance, sir, you have only to call. I will hear you. Malkin,” she barked at her assistant, who straightened like a soldier before a general, “I’ll be in the back, stitching custom outfits. You’ll be here, in the front, taking measurements and _not_ wasting our clients’ time with idle chit-chat.” Then, with apparent sincerity, Tabitha added, “You, too, will call for me if you need me.”

Minnie blushed.

Ah. So that hadn’t changed, either. The assistant had yet to successfully woo her employer.

Or had she? It wasn’t as though Voldemort knew. Or cared. Tabitha would never confess the truth, anyway, given how adamantly she separated work from leisure.

After Tabitha had left, Minnie sidled up to them.

“Um…” Minnie’s measuring tape was already rousing itself without Tabitha’s influence, sitting up like a coiled snake and almost tempting Voldemort to talk to it in Parseltongue. “H-hello? I remember you, Mr. Ri—”

Voldemort did not let her utter the offensive name. “We are here for my son. Harrison Gaunt.”

“Oi,” interjected Harry. “I _said_ I’m not a—”

“And,” Voldemort continued, right over Harry, “he needs an entire wardrobe.”

Minnie’s eyes gleamed at the challenge, despite her timid personality. This, Voldemort suspected, was why Tabitha had hired her in the first place. It was a quality Voldemort had in common with the shop owner—neither of them suffered fools gladly, and incompetents, not at all.

“Why don’t we just choose from the discounted clothes on those racks?” Harry said. “They’ve got auto-fitting charms on them, haven’t they?”

Voldemort scowled. “They may have such charms, but they will never fit quite as properly as clothes tailored specifically for you. No son of mine shall have robes that are not bespoke.”

“We’ll be delighted to offer you our bespoke service,” Minnie said eagerly, even as Harry groaned. “What would you like made?”

“Harrison requires attire for all occasions.” Voldemort began rattling off the list. “Dress robes, casual robes, duelling robes and flying robes, shirts both formal and informal, short-sleeved and full-sleeved, trousers of casual and professional cuts, waistcoats, sweaters, vests, nightclothes, undergarments—”

Harry choked. “Under—!”

“And socks,” Voldemort finished. Daring Harry to contradict him.

Which Harry inevitably did. “That’s too much. That’ll cost… a lot! A lot. Especially if it’s made to measure. I only need two normal, casual robes and three ordinary pairs of shirts and pants, and, yeah, some socks and undies. That’s about it. I’m not Marie Antoinette!”

That had Voldemort picturing Harry in a corset, which distracted him enough for Minnie to speak up again.

“What about school robes?” Minnie chimed in, eyeing Harry critically and probably thinking him younger than he was, just as Voldemort initially had.

“No, I—I’ve already graduated.” Harry scuffed his shoe against the parquetry floor. “Sort of.”

Sort of? Voldemort would have to get a detailed answer out of Harry later. His son’s education was no mean matter.

“All right,” said Minnie dubiously. She directed Harry to the rear of the shop, where she got him to stand on a stool. Her measuring tape slithered off her shoulders and began to measure Harry efficiently, dancing about him with dizzying speed while an automatic quill took equally efficient notes on a parchment that bobbed in mid-air. It was markedly less intimidating than Tabitha’s style of measurement, and when it was concluded, Minnie studied the parchment and hummed to herself. “Great, then, shall we get started on picking the fabrics? Mr. Gaunt, if you’d go into the changing rooms and remove your clothing, I’ll send some samples through. Please pick the colours and textures you prefer, and they will be tailored as per your measurements and produced in the quantities you request.”

“Righty-o,” said Harry sullenly, and trudged towards the changing rooms like a prisoner to his execution. Or like Marie Antoinette to a guillotine.

“The fabrics,” Voldemort instructed Minnie, “are key. The dress robes _must_ be silk blends, and the dress shirts pure silk; I insist. Kindly disregard Harrison’s quibbles on the issue. The sweaters and vests must be pure cashmere, layered with inbuilt warming charms. In fact…” Voldemort pictured Minnie recommending these fabrics and Harry easily out-stubborning her and winding up with some horrific, inferior, Muggle polyester. “I’ll take the fabrics to him myself. He’ll be more inclined to cooperate with me.”

Minnie grinned, as if amused by their battle of wills. “Your… son… is very modest, sir.”

“Far too much so,” Voldemort concurred. He was about to peer into Minnie’s mind to discover what that suspicious pause had been about, but then he espied a bolt of flawless, emerald-green silk amongst the dozens of rolled-up bolts stacked within the shelves. It was the precise shade of Harry’s eyes. Pleased by his discovery, he waved his hand at it to set it afloat.

Minnie gaped at the display of wandless magic.

“We’ll begin with the dress shirts.” Voldemort departed for the changing rooms with the cylindrical bolt following him. “When this bolt returns, send me every shade of green you have.”

The changing rooms were a row of six curtained enclosures, with their temperature being downright toasty for the comfort of shoppers in winter. All the changing rooms had velvety maroon curtains pulled aside to show empty cubicles; the only cubicle with the curtains closed must be Harry’s.

Voldemort walked up to them and threw them open.

“Wha—!” Harry whirled around, shirt clutched to his chest. He was, Voldemort noted, completely naked aside from his underwear, although that horrendous oversized shirt that he was covering himself with mostly shielded him from view. “What are you—where’s Madam Malkin?”

_Madam_ Malkin? Was she that old in Harry’s future? “It is I who will be selecting your fabrics,” Voldemort declared as the curtains swung shut behind him. “You, Harry, need only submit.”

“So I don’t get a say at all?” Harry spotted the bolt of green silk floating behind Voldemort. “You could’ve just sent that in! Like I expected Malkin to do! You don’t have to be _in the cubicle with me_ , for Merlin’s sake.”

Voldemort scarcely heard Harry. All he could see were Harry’s bare shoulders, delicate as bird-wings, and he had to see the rest. He reached out to gently pull Harry’s shirt away from him.

“H-hey!” Harry protested as the shirt fell away. He tried to cross his arms over his chest, but Voldemort caught Harry’s wrists in both hands and held them open. Held _Harry_ open for his inspection.

Harry was a skin-and-bone creature, waifish and elfin. Slender as a sapling—bendable, breakable. Something to be protected. Harry’s was an innocent body, if bodies could be called innocent; there was a defenselessness to it, a sweetness and a simplicity that cut right through Voldemort’s armour and to his heart, striking him at his core, where he had not been expecting to be struck.

What was it about Harry that brought Voldemort to this place—to this state of rippling, devastating shock—again and again?

Harry had turned his face away, a reddish tinge darkening his cheeks as Voldemort examined him. “I’m not three years old,” he muttered. “I can dress myself.”

Voldemort nudged Harry’s discarded Muggle shirt aside with his boot. “Evidently not.” His voice was strange; hoarser than usual. He slid a palm up from Harry’s wrist to his arm, his shoulder, his throat, which Voldemort cupped briefly to feel Harry swallow, and then down to Harry’s waist.

Harry’s skin was as soft and searing as a flame. Its heat scorched Voldemort’s very soul, and he was sure that if he persisted, there would be nothing left of him but ashes.

And yet he did not stop; could not stop. This was his son’s body, as perfect as a fever-dream, a vision snatched from the very jaws of insanity. Surely it could not be real.

“What… what are you doing?” Harry asked, hesitant as he so rarely was.

_Inspecting what is mine_. “Cataloguing your injuries.” Because there were ridges that punctuated the satiny sleekness of Harry’s skin—here, at his hip, an indentation that looked like the buckle of a belt. A slash along his right forearm, as of a cursed knife. A serrated, blunt-toothed cicatrice below the pink smudge of a nipple. A curved, moon-like scar under his navel—

“Well, you don’t have to _touch_ every single one of them!” Harry twisted like a fish, but it only made Voldemort’s hands slide down even further, to Harry’s hips, Harry’s thighs. They were soft, too, so very soft that Voldemort’s wand-callused fingers must have felt rough to Harry in comparison. Voldemort had to grip Harry’s thighs to avoid slipping any further, but perhaps he gripped too hard, because Harry gasped and stilled. “Don’t…”

_Don’t what?_ These scars were badges of courage; Voldemort had to attest to them personally to reassure himself that his son had survived them. That his son was a survivor.

Still in a trance, Voldemort said meditatively, “I will kill all those who have marked you so. The Muggles who beat you with a belt when you were but a child, before your magic had even developed enough to heal you. Whoever used that cursed knife on you. And this…” It emerged as a hiss, almost Parseltongue, as Voldemort brushed Harry’s hair aside to reveal the scar that Harry usually kept hidden—a lightning-shaped scar that radiated Dark magic. “The wizard who dared to do _this_.”

Harry chuckled humourlessly. “Well, then, you’ll have to kill yourself.”

Voldemort froze. “I did this.” This curse, that was Dark enough to etch itself into Harry’s flesh permanently. This curse, the intention of which had not been only to leave a mark; the intention had been to destroy. And that, Voldemort could not forgive. That, Voldemort would kill his future self for, were they to ever meet.

“I wounded you.” Voldemort was possessed by a savage tenderness, a desire to heal Harry, to give Harry a mark of his own. A mark not borne of pain. He ran his fingertips lightly over Harry’s scar, and Harry gazed up at him, immobilised by whatever he saw on Voldemort’s face. “I’ve done nothing _but_ wound you, haven’t I?”

“Don’t…” Harry’s eyes were wide and vulnerable. “Don’t act like you care. If I wasn’t your son—” He shuddered as the thumb of Voldemort’s other hand settled at the junction of his hip and thigh, stroking back and forth. An apology. “—if I wasn’t your fucking _heir_ , you wouldn’t give a damn about some toddler you’d cursed.”

“Toddler?” So that was how long Voldemort’s future counterpart had been hurting Harry. It was unforgivable. Unnatural, to attack one so young. Voldemort had not, to this date, harmed even a Muggle infant. It was below him. “Harry, you are my heir, and thus precious to me beyond your comprehension—beyond, perhaps, my own. But in no world would I, as I am now, consider it acceptable to extinguish a wizard of your outstanding talent. It would be an insult to magic.”

Harry didn’t answer; he only grew red again. And squirmed as though squirming could dislodge Voldemort.

“And what of this?” Voldemort’s focus shifted to the scar he had glimpsed before on the back of Harry’s right hand, which Voldemort lifted to scrutinise more closely. As he did, a sick horror built up in him, surpassing even what the lightning scar had roused. “A Blood Quill.” No. Someone—to his Harry— “Who? Was it I?”

“No, but it was a professor you appointed to Hogwarts as part of your grand plan for the wizarding world.” Harry sneered, though it was wobbly, a mere approximation of a sneer. “This was her idea of detention.”

Voldemort had appointed _a torturer_ in charge of _magical children_? Not even Muggle children—magical ones?

If this was the evil his next few Horcruxes had wrought…

“I will never,” Voldemort pledged, and the pledge had the compulsion of a binding oath, “create another Horcrux.” Magic crackled and sparked. The oath echoed as though within a hall, amplified by the power that filled it.

Harry boggled at him. “Did you just swear a—”

“Harry.” Voldemort bowed his head and pressed his mouth to the scar from Blood Quill, as though he could take the agony that Harry had suffered into himself. Reverently, he traced the words with his lips—‘I must not tell lies’—one by one, with unfaltering devotion, until Harry made a sound. A small, tremulous sound. “For you, anything.”

Voldemort had never been more serious. He looked back up at Harry, who was breathless, and who wore an expression somewhere between stunned and overwhelmed.

Good. At last, it was Harry who was feeling like that. Revenge was sweet.

Sweeter and more addictive than Voldemort could bear.

“S-sir?” called Minnie from beyond the curtain. “Mr. Gaunt?”

Oh.

They were in a public changing room.

Harry must have remembered it at the same time that Voldemort did, because he swore and shoved at Voldemort at the exact moment that Voldemort smoothly stepped away. Which, of course, caused Harry to topple forward and Voldemort to catch him in his arms, until they both staggered backwards and right into the floating bolt of green silk.

That was how Minnie found them—tumbling out of the cubicle, an all but nude Harry in Voldemort’s embrace, with emerald silk spilling all over them.

Indignity seemed the order of the day.

“I…” Minnie gawked at them, flabbergasted, and then cringed in embarrassment. “I’m sorry! I didn’t mean to interrupt—”

“Y-you’re not interrupting!” Harry denied frantically. Foolish boy. Did he not know that vehement denial was the most incriminating thing of all?

“Minnie,” Voldemort said calmly, like nothing was wrong, because it _wasn’t_. He had simply been learning more about his son, although the optics had been… regrettable. “I do beg your pardon, but I’ve changed my mind. You may assist Harrison with selecting fabrics,” because Harry looked like he’d murder Voldemort on the spot if Voldemort dared to re-enter his cubicle, “while I send my preliminary choices through from the main shop. Should any other customers arrive, I shall summon Tabitha to attend to them. Will that suffice?”

“Yes, Mr. Rid—”

“And Harrison,” Voldemort addressed his heir sternly, “you will agree to every selection of Minnie’s, lest your father have to step in again. You wouldn’t want that, would you, son?”

“No,” Harry gritted out, still too traumatised by Minnie’s misunderstanding to let go of his shirt, which he clung onto like a lifeline. Minnie seemed to envy him having a lifeline at all.

Voldemort resisted the urge to smirk at their mutual idiocy as he exited the changing rooms.

The main shop, when he got back to it, was markedly cooler than it had been before. Odd. It took a few minutes for Voldemort to figure out why.

The air itself was colder when Harry was not there. In Harry’s absence, the space around Voldemort was leached of warmth, of colour, of life. And wherever Voldemort stood, he stood alone. Unwarmed. Unlit.

A planet out of orbit with its sun.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> voldemort, appreciating harry’s beauty and getting turned on by harry’s magic and fantasising about harry in a corset: ah yes this is how fathers normally feel for their sons
> 
> me, my head in my hands: no, voldemort. it isn’t. voldemort. voldemort no
> 
> voldemort, feeling harry up in a changing room: ah yes this is father-son bonding
> 
> me:
> 
> me:
> 
> me: i give up


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Voldemort and Harry on a settee, K-I-S-S-I-N-G.
> 
> (No kissing on the mouth, alas… but there is kissing elsewhere!)

That evening, by the firelight that illuminated the parlour of Riddle Manor, Voldemort received an invitation. It arrived by owl, following the delivery from Tabitha’s Tailoring that had, coincidentally, arrived just an hour prior. Tabitha had made quick work of stitching Harry’s clothes, although that might have been because of the large sum of money Voldemort had paid her to speed up the process.

It turned out to be money well-spent. Because Harry would begin wearing those clothes tonight.

Harry was currently curled up on the loveseat by the fireplace, sipping from a mug of hot chocolate that Flopsy had all but forced into his hands while exclaiming about how chilly the young master’s fingers were.

Voldemort himself had never been the recipient of such devotion from the house-elf, but he could not begrudge Harry being her favourite. If anything, it seemed right that Harry be the most beloved occupant of this house. It wasn’t as cadaverous with Harry in it, as if Harry dispelled unpleasant memories with his mere presence. A living Patronus, chasing Dementors away.

Voldemort had never been able to cast a Patronus—his sole magical failure. He pondered whether he would now be able to, with the recollection of Harry under the snow to fuel it. He would try tomorrow. Today, however, he had a son to introduce to his followers.

He rose fluidly from his armchair and handed over the invitation. It was classic Malfoy—a glass-clear parchment with silver words shining upon it like starlight, as if glass itself had been tempered to the consistency of paper. An elegant impossibility.

“We’re invited to Malfoy Manor for dinner?” Harry set his mug aside on a side table and perused the parchment, on which the silver words winked and glittered. “To celebrate ‘this auspicious occasion’? What auspicious occasion?”

_My birthday. My return. My having a son. Take your pick_. “Mulciber must have passed on the news that I now have an heir. Ergo, all of my upper ranks will know of you, and be impatient to meet you. Malfoy dare not offend me by inviting us a day too late, so he is inviting us now. All the Death Eaters will be in attendance. It will be an excellent opportunity to introduce you to them.”

Harry’s mouth dropped open. “I refuse to attend a Death Eater party like some twisted version of Cinderella, with you as a weird cross between my evil stepmother and my fairy godmother.”

Voldemort affected a wounded expression. “Why can’t I be the prince?”

“The prince isn’t Cinderella’s _father_.” Harry rolled his eyes. “Though I suppose you’re too narcissistic to identify with anybody except the most attractive male character in the story.”

Voldemort ignored the insult; it was, after all, true. “Is this fairytale-themed digression your method of escaping a Malfoy party? Understandable, but ineffective.”

Harry exhaled gustily. “Look. I’m not a born-and-raised Pureblood with all the… manners they’ll expect me to have. I’ll use the wrong forks, step on someone’s shoes in the middle of a waltz, and set fire to the drapes. What sort of introduction will that be? I’ll ruin your reputation.”

Voldemort—no, Tom—had nursed those very concerns before his first Hogwarts ball. “If it’s dining etiquette you’re worried about, you need only imitate me, as you will be seated next to me. Use whichever utensil I am using a split second after me, and they’ll be none the wiser. Setting fire to the drapes might actually be an improvement on Malfoy Manor’s unbearable ostentatiousness—”

Harry coughed out a startled laugh.

“—and besides, a penchant for pyromania may stand you in good stead with my Death Eaters.”

Harry squinted at him. “Was that a joke? Because I honestly have no clue if it was.”

It dawned on Voldemort that he didn’t know, either. So he didn’t bother clarifying. “As for dancing…” Voldemort thought about somebody else’s arms around Harry’s slender waist—holding him close, guiding him—and seethed. “You need only dance with me.”

Harry eyed him sceptically. “Yes, because that won’t be terrifying _at all_.”

“I guarantee that I am a less terrifying dance partner than Walburga Black.”

Harry shuddered, a full-body shudder.

“Ah.” Voldemort quirked a brow. “So you have met her.”

“Only as a screaming, hateful, bigoted portrait.”

“That, too, would be an improvement on the original.”

“ _You’re_ the one who’s recruited all these bigoted arseholes!” Harry burst out. “Collecting them like… like trophies! And no-one’s more bigoted than you!”

“Harry.” Voldemort sat on the loveseat, near enough to Harry to feel his warmth, so much warmer than that of the fireplace. Harry twitched and went pink, as he’d been doing with peculiar frequency since they’d returned from Tabitha’s. “I have assembled those with the money and the influence to best serve my purpose. That is all.”

Harry scoffed. “The purpose of Muggle genocide. Right.”

“Wrong.” Voldemort had to convince Harry of this; it was of paramount importance. “The purpose of Muggle segregation.”

“When in human history has segregation ever worked?”

“Never in human history was I in charge of it.”

Harry regarded him with amazement. “You mean that. You genuinely, sincerely mean that. You think you’re the smartest leader _in the entirety of human history?_ ” Harry snorted. “Wow. Just, wow, you deranged egomaniac.”

Voldemort ground his teeth. “I would never tolerate another person speaking to me like that. Only you, Harry.”

Harry looked up at him—daring, defiant, beautiful. His eyes were a translucent, fire-lit green, only inches away. Mesmerising. “What makes me so different?”

Voldemort was seized again by that dreadful want, that hunger to consume Harry’s rebelliousness, to devour it, treasure it, preserve it, _ruin_ it—

In that instant, an image blistered through Voldemort’s mind of Harry kneeling before him, head tilted to the side and neck bared, an eager supplicant. But the image of a pliant and obedient Harry was as unlikely as it was inflaming. For Harry would never submit. Never. Not to Voldemort’s logic, not to his coercion, not to his persuasion, and not to his force.

It was then that Voldemort realised, with a luminescent clarity, that he did not desire Harry’s submission. He did not desire Harry’s capitulation. Harry’s agreement, yes. Harry’s acceptance. But not the obsequious simpering that Voldemort was already accustomed to receiving from others.

“Because with you,” Voldemort whispered in reply, “it would not matter whether I permitted you to take that tone with me, or whether I punished you for it. You would say what you liked regardless, because you are a proud and free spirit, Harry. Impossible to tame.”

Harry grew a shade pinker, and glanced away from Voldemort’s eyes, as if their intensity was frightening. “I thought…” He cleared his throat. “I thought you’d say it’s because I’m your son.”

Voldemort smiled—again, that strange, unfamiliar pull on his lips, not the sharklike sneer they were used to forming. “That, too.”

And Harry was back to looking at him, wide-eyed and wondering. After a beat, he blurted, “I’m a Gryffindor, by the way. Sorry if that disappoints you. Or not. That is, I’m not sorry.”

Mayhap it would have disturbed Voldemort once, the prospect of an heir of his—an heir of _Slytherin’s_ —in Gryffindor, but Harry’s uncalculated purity and his reckless bravery were not especially Slytherin traits. Still, Voldemort could not bring himself to regret them. He could not bring himself to regret any aspect of Harry’s. And then there was the unalterable truth that Voldemort knew within his heart of hearts, the truth that he now stated with absolute certainty. “It does not disappoint me, for I know, without a doubt, that the Sorting Hat offered you Slytherin first.”

Harry flushed, as if caught in a lie, but admitted, “I—I asked for anywhere but Slytherin.”

Of course. “Because you did not wish to be like me.”

“Yeah.” Harry met Voldemort’s gaze. “And I still don’t.”

“Good.” Voldemort said it vehemently, with every ounce of conviction in him. “I do not want you to be like me. I want you to be _better_.”

The firewood popped. The clock on the mantelpiece ticked. And Harry sucked in a breath, a shallow, audible sip of air, his eyes wider than ever behind his glasses.

Finally, Harry glanced away again and ran a shaky hand through his hair. “Damn. I was hoping to piss you off.”

“You were _hoping_ to anger me?” Definitely a Gryffindor.

“It isn’t as scary as…” Harry waved at Voldemort. “When you’re all… focused.” He gulped. “On me.”

“So you were hoping to displace my focus onto my anger, instead.” And yet, such a Slytherin.

“Er, about the party.” It was an obvious evasion, but Voldemort allowed Harry the change in subject. “It’s in two hours. At eight. And the only backstory I can come up with to explain why I haven’t been in this generation’s Hogwarts is that I was home-schooled by tutors, and that you kept me hidden away for my own safety.”

“A creditable lie.” Voldemort smirked. “For a Gryffindor.”

“Thanks,” Harry said dryly. “I still loathe, and I mean l-o-a-t-h-e the idea of going, but it won’t be that bad if Sirius is there, too.” He smiled, a lovely, gently blossoming smile, wistful and reminiscent—and it was for some other man, for a stranger Voldemort didn’t even know. An intruder Voldemort couldn’t find and murder immediately. “If Walburga’s there, maybe he will be, too?”

Voldemort’s hand whipped out to grip Harry’s jaw. “Who is Sirius?”

Harry froze. “Oh, there’s your anger,” he said weakly. “Hello, Voldemort’s anger.”

“Do. Not. Jest. With me. Who is this ‘Sirius’ to you? A relative?” Voldemort tightened his grip until Harry winced. “A lover?”

“He’s not my _lover_ , don’t be ridiculous. He’s my godfather. And he’s Walburga’s eldest son, although you may not have met him if you’ve been out of Britain for a couple of years. He’s probably only about three or four right now. Relax, he’s not going to kidnap me, or propose marriage to me like Mulciber, or—”

“You love him.”

Harry stared at Voldemort helplessly. “Yes. He was my only father figure—”

“ _I_ am your father.” It emerged raw. Wrathful. As full of power as a curse.

“Who abandoned me! You were always gone! I’d been lonely for so long, and then he—Sirius was there for me, and he was _kind_ , and—” Suddenly, the desperate yearning in Harry’s features transmuted into fury. It happened so abruptly that Voldemort was not prepared for it, for the thundering surge of magic that shook through the house like an earthquake, that made the half-empty mug of hot chocolate rattle off the table and shatter on the floor.

Voldemort found Harry’s wand pointed at his jaw, swift as a striking viper. Swifter than Voldemort himself, and the awareness trickled in much more gradually that Harry was straddling him, looming over him, and that Harry’s eyes were violent and venomous and wild.

Voldemort’s breath caught. His own wrath faded before Harry’s, and he was overcome by wonder at this new face of his son’s, at this new, exquisite cruelty, knife-sharp and deadly and so familiar that it was as if Voldemort beheld himself in a mirror. A mirror in which his eyes were green, not red.

“He died because of you,” Harry hissed. “You might as well have killed him yourself. I haven’t forgotten. I’ll never forget. And I’ll never, _ever_ forgive.” The tip of Harry’s wand trembled, and the magic that sparked from it stung Voldemort’s skin like a bite, deep and vicious. “And if you dare to hurt him now… If you dare to so much as _look_ in his direction with anything in your mind that resembles an inclination to harm, I will kill you, father or not. Everything you have bought me, all the supposed affection you’ve given me, will mean nothing. _Nothing_. Because if you hurt him—if you hurt anyone I call my family—I will destroy you.”

_Destroy me_ , Voldemort wished for a moment, hungrily, irrationally. _How will you do it, son of mine? Will you kill your father as I killed my own? With a wand? Or will you do it with your bare hands, with your dainty little hands wrapped around my throat?_

Harry was still poised above him, panting. The weight of him on Voldemort’s lap was the most perfect thing Voldemort had ever known. A bead of sweat rolled down Harry’s temple and neck, only to settle in the dip of a collarbone. Voldemort reached for it, as if in a dream, as slowly as if he were moving through amber. Harry flinched but did not retreat.

And Voldemort touched it, that bead of sweat, the sheen of it on his fingertip so surreal that it sent an electric _jolt_ sizzling through him. Voldemort could only imagine the taste of it on his tongue, as salty and warm as blood. He shivered.

“Fucking hell,” said Harry deliriously, still panting. “What’re you looking at me like that for?”

Voldemort grinned—a mad, feral grin. “You’re glorious.”

“And you’re raving. I just… I just threatened your _life_. And you haven’t even pulled your wand on me.”

“Would you kill me, my Harry?” Voldemort ghosted his finger along Harry’s collarbone, light as a feather, until Harry pulled away. “Truly? Have you that much hate in you?”

“You’d be surprised.” Harry withdrew his wand and climbed off Voldemort, collapsing beside him on the sofa. “Fucking hell,” he repeated. “You’re totally bonkers. But I will kill you if you go after Sirius.”

“I have nothing against a three-year-old.” Had Sirius been an adult, however… And Harry’s godfather… It was unthinkable that there should be another father to shower Harry with gifts and attention. Another man to take Harry home, to touch him like this, to talk to him over breakfast. Voldemort assumed that it must have been Harry’s mother who had assigned him a godfather, perhaps anticipating her own death upon Harry’s birth. “I will not harm him,” Voldemort conceded. _Yet_.

Harry turned towards him. On the cramped loveseat, Harry’s thigh lay against Voldemort’s, as palpable and distracting as Harry’s weight had been on Voldemort’s lap. “Swear it. Swear that you will not, in this time or any other time, seek to harm Sirius Black directly or indirectly.”

Voldemort narrowed his eyes. “That is a very broad definition of—”

“I don’t give a rat’s arse if it’s a broad definition! Swear it,” Harry insisted, “or I’ll leave right now. I’ll walk out of this house and you’ll never see me again.”

So unreasonable. So clever, to know just where to push. “Harry—”

“You did say,” Harry’s own eyes narrowed, “ _For you, anything_. At Tabitha’s. You said that. You promised.”

And Voldemort laughed. He _laughed_ , the truest, fullest laugh he could ever remember laughing, filled with such complete rapture that it bubbled out of him, effortless. “Oh, my sly Slytherin child,” he said breathlessly, overjoyed. “My dearest, most beloved manipulator.” He drew Harry to him with a sudden arm around Harry’s shoulders, and before Harry could even balk, Voldemort pressed a kiss to his temple—a brief, hard kiss that did indeed taste of sweat and salt. Not quite the taste of tears, but almost. Almost.

Voldemort released a rather shell-shocked Harry and said, “Never fear, my own. I shall protect all you hold dear, for I hold _you_ dear. And I swear,” here, the magic of the soul pledge crackled around him again, “that I will not seek to harm Sirius Black directly or indirectly, in this time or any other time.” He cocked his head. “Satisfied?”

Harry sat there, gaping at him. “I… I just have to ask? I just ask you for something, and you give it to me?” He sounded unsteady, unmoored. As if the pillars that had supported his most central beliefs were crumbling.

“As you reminded me, I did say, _For you, anything_. And I am a man of my word.”

“Right.” Harry slumped on the loveseat, disbelievingly touching the spot in front of his ear where Voldemort had kissed him. He was still shell-shocked, it seemed, and Voldemort was taking such untrammelled pleasure in Harry’s confusion that it was a pity to end it.

“We must get ready, my heir.” Voldemort nudged him. “We have a party to attend.”

Harry peered across at him in sheer bafflement. “Are we really going to a party after an attempted patricide?”

“’Tis the Pureblood way.” Voldemort got up and held out a hand for Harry to take, which Harry did, after staring at it for a few seconds as if at a crocodile. “Thankfully, Tabitha has already supplied your clothing for the occasion. This is your debut among the Death Eaters, Harry. You must be ravishing.”

“Ravishing?” Harry stood waveringly, his palm clammy against Voldemort’s. “I’m not a sodding Disney princess. Or Julia Roberts from _Pretty Woman_.”

“I neither know nor care what those detestable Muggle references were—”

“I reckon Disney’s magic.”

“—but you are wearing green today, make no mistake.”

“I already made the biggest mistake of my life by travelling back in time,” Harry muttered. “How much worse can it get?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> voldemort, trying to justify his feelings for harry as ‘fatherly’:


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Harry has his Disney princess moment. Too bad he has it in a room full of Disney villains.
> 
> Also, some notes because I want to reserve the actual notes for pointless GIFs:
> 
> I’ve made Bellatrix, Andromeda and Narcissa into Walburga’s daughters, and I’ve aged both Bellatrix and Andromeda up by three years just to make things more fun! Basically, to make Walburga push her daughters onto Harry so that Voldemort can lose his shit. There’s nothing more fun than making Voldemort lose his shit, as long as you do it from a safe distance! Don’t try this at home, kids!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> harry showing up to a death eater party looking absolutely gorgeous:
> 
> voldemort to all the death eaters:

It was twenty-five minutes to eight when Voldemort entered Harry’s bedroom from the hidden door connecting their rooms. Harry, who had apparently not been expecting this visit, spun on his heel with his wand already discharging itself into his hand from its holster.

Excellent. His heir was appropriately vigilant.

Vigilant enough to only lower his wand _slowly_ , even in the presence of his own father. His green eyes were alight. Did it matter that they were alight with suspicion?

“Wh-what are you doing here?” Harry blinked at him owlishly. “And where in Merlin’s name did you come from?”

Voldemort hummed and took a moment to appreciate his son, congratulating himself on the ensemble he had selected for Harry. Because Harry was breathtaking.

He was dressed in a subtly shimmering green shirt, tailored from the very bolt of fabric that had been part of their earlier debacle at Tabitha’s shop. The emerald silk set off Harry’s fairness and gave the vulnerable skin at Harry’s wrists and throat the pale lustre of moonstone. A lustre that invited caresses, that invited the gradual undoing of buttons, the revelation of the rest of that glowing skin.

But Harry’s beauty did not end there. Belted at his lean waist were black wool trousers with green pinstripes, and they somehow made Harry’s coltish legs seem even longer—two elegant, flowing lines of movement, imbued with all the nimbleness of a nymph. A fitted sable waistcoat added a note of formality that the open button at Harry’s collar immediately undid, revealing the smooth, graceful arch of his neck and a tantalising hint of his clavicles. His tousled hair gleamed, soft and touchable and freshly aromatic from the bath Harry must have taken. Harry’s entire body was fragrant, even from this distance, not a floral scent but something ineffable, sensual, the scent of a forest cleansed by rain.

Had Voldemort ever glimpsed such a boy from across a crowded ballroom—even just a glimpse—he would have been instantly captivated, drawn in by this fey creature that embodied all the mysteries of magic itself. Inexplicable, uncontainable. Untamed, but fragile. Wilful, but sweet.

And Tabitha had done Harry justice. Her stitching was exemplary. Every piece clung to Harry’s lithe frame, flattering from every angle, as Voldemort discovered for himself when he circled around Harry, eyes raking up and down Harry’s form.

Harry swallowed nervously. “What are you—are you _inspecting_ me like horseflesh you’re about to sell at a market?”

“I am inspecting you like a father whose only son is about to confront an audience of the most ruthless fashion critics in wizarding Britain.”

“All right,” said Harry brightly. “I’m not going. Bye!”

“No, Harry.” Voldemort stepped up behind Harry and, with a hand on Harry’s waistcoated back, urged him to turn towards the full-length mirror beside the dresser. “Look. They will find nothing to critique. They will, if anything, envy you, and I for having you.”

“Having me? You didn’t give birth to me yoursel—” Harry cut off as he saw himself in the mirror. “Oh my god,” he said wonderingly. “I’m Posh Spice.”

“What?”

“Muggle reference.”

Voldemort grimaced. “ _No more_ of those in Malfoy Manor, or the ancestral portraits themselves might descend from the walls to eat you alive.”

Harry cringed. “That’s reassuring. Are you sure I have to go?”

“Yes.” Voldemort cast a mild tidying spell on Harry’s hair, not to fix it in place but to give its natural tumble a charm that was more artful and less just-debauched-in-a-closet. “There. If we leave now, we will arrive shortly before we are due. The element of surprise can sometimes reveal more about one’s hosts than timeliness.”

“So no ‘fashionably late’, then.” Harry’s shoulders sagged. He must have been hoping to use that excuse to delay their departure.

“I’m afraid not.” Voldemort summoned Harry’s dress robes from the wardrobe where Flopsy had neatly hung them all. This set of robes was of fine-spun wool the shade of midnight, the exact shade of Harry’s hair. Voldemort held the robes up for Harry to slip into.

“Where _did_ you come from, by the way?” Harry worked his arms into the robes’ sleeves. “You weren’t in my room, and then you were just… there. And I didn’t hear you Apparate.”

Voldemort nodded at the hidden door, which he had placed under a Disillusionment charm such that only focusing directly on it would reveal it.

“What the…” Harry boggled at the outlines of a doorframe that appeared in a patch of what should have been uninterrupted wallpaper.“What’s that creepy door beside the cupboard?”

“A door to my bedroom.”

And now, Harry was boggling at him. “Our bedrooms are connected,” he clarified, as though Voldemort hadn’t just said as much. “There is a door between our bedrooms. Why?”

“Because I have the adjoining master bedroom, and the bedroom you currently inhabit once belonged to the mistress of the house. The door must have been installed to facilitate conjugal visits.”

“But I’m _not_ the mistress of this house,” Harry objected, feebly. “And there won’t be any conjugal visits.”

“No, indeed.” Voldemort checked that the warming spells on Harry’s robes were working; it wouldn’t do for the boy to catch a cold outside Malfoy Manor’s front doors. “But you are its heir, and I would prefer to keep you close in case of emergencies.”

“What emergencies, a thousand cloned Dumbledores descending from the skies on rainbow-coloured unicorns?”

Voldemort sighed heavily. “I did not need that image.”

Harry grinned unrepentantly. “I know.”

***

Malfoy Manor’s stately hulk towered over them as they waited before its immense, ornate, silver-wrought doors. Snow concealed the true scale of the manor, but it made itself known nonetheless, in a low, ever-present, vibrating hum of magic so ancient that it revealed the manor’s age. All old magical buildings had this near-sentience, this intelligence, a noticeable aura of magic brought to life by generation after generation of wizards and witches.

Suddenly, Voldemort missed Hogwarts fiercely, with a yearning that only Hogwarts could evoke.

Harry’s eyes met his, and in them, Voldemort saw the same yearning reflected back at him. Harry was missing Hogwarts, too. Curious, that they could share this certainty about each other’s mental states without a psychic bond. Then again, who better to understand them than each other?

The doors swung inwards noiselessly, and there, in the torch-lit entrance hall, stood Morgane Malfoy in all her tall, statuesque glory. She was taller than even Voldemort himself, and when she bowed, she bowed with dignity, not subservience. A rare trait; not many knew how to convey deference without servility.

“Morgane,” Voldemort greeted her. “We thank you for inviting us to your home.”

“It is our honour, my lord.” Morgane swept an arm inwards. “Please, enter.”

Behind Morgane was Abraxas, outshone by his wife as always; it was only his sincere adoration of her that preserved his pride. Abraxas bowed, too, albeit without his wife’s composure. “M-my lord,” he stammered, bobbing nervously in Morgane’s shadow, as if she could protect him from Voldemort. “We welcome you to our humble abode with the utmost joy.”

Harry emitted an odd sound at the word ‘humble’, and Morgane’s attention swung to him, her grey eyes as sharp as blades. Harry was an unknown quantity to her, and would therefore be classified as a threat until she knew more about him, until she discovered how to manipulate him or appease him. Morgane was an incomparable Slytherin. “And our lord’s heir,” she said, bowing again, her frost-white hair sliding over her shoulder. “We are thrilled to make your acquaintance.” Abraxas quickly imitated her, mumbling pleasantries of his own.

Harry seemed stumped by the sight of Malfoys bowing to him. “Um, er. The pleasure is mine?”

Voldemort shot him a chastising look. That shouldn’t have been a question.

As the Malfoys led them to the dining hall, Harry leaned close to Voldemort and whispered, “So is Mrs. Malfoy your main Death Eater? I thought it’d be Abraxas.”

“Are you so prejudiced against women, Harry?” Voldemort wandlessly renewed the selective Muffliato of before, so that he and Harry may converse in privacy even amongst company. “Abraxas is only useful for passing on gossip and hearsay. Morgane is my highest-ranked lieutenant, a cross between a military strategist and a propagandist. She was a Selwyn prior to marriage, and her connections at all the Ministries of Europe are invaluable.”

“ _You’re_ the lunatic who murdered my mother,” Harry pointed out. “I figured you weren’t exactly a feminist.”

“She must have served her purpose.” Voldemort shrugged. “I kill those who are spares; their gender is irrelevant to me.”

At the term ‘spares’, Harry’s expression darkened, and he fell silent.

The dining hall of Malfoy Manor was half the size of the Great Hall in Hogwarts; an obscene display of wealth. Giant chandeliers refracted the light from a thousand floating, silvery orbs into abstract geometric patterns that flickered across the walls. The obsidian floor was veined with silver, and was enchanted to give the impression of rippling underfoot, providing the guests the illusion of walking on water. Arching, floor-to-ceiling windows showed off the vast Malfoy estate, where the snow had not been allowed to collect in drifts but had instead been engineered to arrange itself into shifting, living ice sculptures, shaped like mythical animals. Even more ice crystals dangled from tree branches as though the trees, too, were chandeliers. Between the windows were intricately woven tapestries depicting medieval hunts, with prancing deer darting about in flashes of silver thread, and equally silver-haired Malfoys on noble steeds, chasing the deer through Slytherin-green forests. On the floor itself were stationed various banquet tables heaped with silver platters of fruit—pomegranates spilling their ruby-red seeds amid glistening cherries still on the stem.

“I’m about to pass out,” said Harry faintly, and then he noticed the resplendently attired Death Eaters gathered around the banquet tables, and the many avid, furtive glances directed his way. Greedy glances, because they clearly saw how beautiful Harry was, and coveted him. “Those are the most well-dressed piranhas I’ve ever seen.”

“Do try not to get eaten,” Voldemort remarked idly, all while planning to kill any Death Eater who bared so much as a tooth.

“There aren’t any small kids,” Harry observed with disappointment. So his much-cherished Sirius was not here. Good.

What _wasn’t_ good was that several adolescent daughters of Death Eaters were present, in a transparent bid to catch the heir’s eye. The Death Eaters hadn’t even been introduced to Harry yet, but were already jockeying for the privilege of being related to Lord Voldemort by marriage.

Voldemort would have to put a stop to that. Harry was too young to be wed—perhaps not as per Pureblood custom, but Voldemort would not see him married off so soon. Voldemort had to shape Harry first, teach him, guide him, and make up for all the lost years of parenting that had driven Harry away from him. Only when Harry was completely and utterly his would Voldemort even contemplate finding him a match…

Except that Harry didn’t _have_ a match. No witch or wizard alive was worthy of Harry.

And if they were, they wouldn’t be alive for long.

“Maybe look less murder-y?” Harry said to Voldemort out of the corner of his mouth. “You’ll scare the other murderers.”

Voldemort breathed evenly. And attempted to calm himself.

As was the norm, the Death Eaters did not rush towards Voldemort at once, but approached him family by family, with decorum, as per their rank.

First were the Malfoys, of course, whose nine-year-old son was conspicuously absent, as were all children under the age of thirteen. Morgane generally preferred not to involve children in their proceedings, a preference that Voldemort had previously thought was for the sake of efficiency, but that he now had a new appreciation for, as a father. Were Harry Lucius’ age, Voldemort would not bring him here, either.

He was already regretting bringing Harry here at all.

After Morgane and Abraxas had congratulated Voldemort on his birthday and had moved away, Harry prodded Voldemort’s shoe with his own. “You didn’t tell me it was your birthday,” he accused.

Voldemort raised his eyebrows. “Would it have mattered?”

“Yes!” Harry exclaimed in frustration. “It was _your_ birthday but you spent the whole day buying stuff for _me_!”

“Which was, without a doubt, the best birthday gift I have ever received.”

Harry stared at him, stunned. “You’ve got to stop doing that,” he complained.

“Doing what?” Voldemort tilted his head.

“Being all… Prince Charming. You’re meant to be Cinderella’s _father_ , remember?”

Before Voldemort could argue that there was no rule that fathers could not be charming, the Blacks sidled up to Voldemort for their turn at grovelling. Walburga was a vulture of a woman, as usual, clad in carrion black and funereal pearls, with a beak-like nose and claw-like hands. Her voice, even when lowered in reverence, had the piercing quality of a screech, and her over-plucked eyebrows made her resemble a plucked pheasant. Her husband Orion was a tad more tolerable, if obviously terrorised by his wife; it was more probable that she was trying to kill _him_ than the other way around.

And then there were Walburga’s two eldest daughters, Bellatrix and Andromeda, fifteen and fourteen respectively. Walburga ushered them forward with a distinctly calculating gleam in her eye, keenly studying Harry’s reaction to her daughters.

A reaction that was somewhat mixed.

Upon seeing Andromeda, who was first in line, Harry lit up, with such genuine fondness in his eyes that Walburga tittered and preened. Andromeda was, Voldemort supposed, adequate, if markedly plainer than her elder sister. Her hair was a nondescript brown and her features unremarkable. In fact, her most notable quality at present was her palpable terror; she appeared panicked by her mother foisting her on Voldemort’s heir.

Upon seeing her panic, Harry immediately took her hand like a solicitous gentleman—damn his compassion. “You remind me of a friend of mine,” he said kindly, and then destroyed all of Walburga’s ambitions with a significantly phrased, “She was like a sister to me.”

Among the Purebloods, considering a woman sister-like was not necessarily a barrier to marriage, but Harry’s particular emphasis made it obvious that, for him, it was.

Andromeda visibly relaxed. Harry smiled at her, and Voldemort had thought he was above glowering at pubescent girls, but he glowered venomously at Andromeda’s hand until Harry politely released it.

Then came Bellatrix.

And Harry’s face didn’t fall so much as freeze into a rictus of unidentifiable emotion. Bellatrix, who was magically talented and who was therefore on Voldemort’s list of future recruits, had a sultriness to her that had gained her many proposals, but Walburga had deemed none of them Pureblooded enough for her daughter; she would settle for nothing less than a match within the Sacred Twenty-Eight.

Bellatrix’s most unfortunate trait was her inconvenient childhood crush on Voldemort, a crush that she had nursed since infancy and that he hoped she would outgrow so that he could recruit her without complications. But now that there was a younger, prettier version of Voldemort, Bellatrix’s round, liquid eyes were fixed upon Harry with absolute fascination. Here was a target for her infatuation who was presumably as powerful as his father, but unlike his father, Harry was within her reach. He was marriageable.

Harry’s tangible distaste for her should have discouraged her, but Bellatrix was disturbingly persistent. Her gaze swung from Voldemort to Harry and back, as if cataloguing their similarities, and her magic, always darkly voracious, stretched its tendrils out towards Harry’s.

Only to be met with a wall. Harry’s magic had reacted instinctively, and though it was invisible to the naked eye, all those in the hall sensed his total rejection of Bellatrix, the impenetrable wall he’d erected against her tentative probing.

Embarrassed, Walburga shepherded her daughters away, hissing viciously into their ears and likely castigating them for failing the family. Orion was cupping Andromeda’s elbow, however, silently supporting his daughter against Walburga’s tirade.

As for Voldemort? Voldemort reflected with a measure of relief that at least he hadn’t had to murder the Blacks today. Had either Bellatrix or Andromeda made progress with Harry, it would have been the last progress they’d ever made.

Third in line was Mulciber.

Well.

Perhaps there _would_ be murder today.

Harry reached out to clasp Voldemort’s arm, and again, Voldemort felt the effervescent warmth of Harry’s magic intertwine with his, so different from its reaction to Bellatrix.

No. Voldemort would not be so easily disarmed. So easily tamed—

Harry’s hand stayed where it was. Anchoring. Steadying.

“My lord.” Mulciber bowed more deeply than what a human spine should have been capable of, not daring to meet his lord’s eyes. “My apologies for the… incident at La Plaque. Please, punish me as you see fit.”

Voldemort saw fit to Crucio Mulciber until the man’s mind broke into tiny, irrecoverable pieces, until Mulciber was a paralytic, drooling mess pissing himself in a St Mungo’s ward.

But Harry’s hand. Harry’s damnable hand. Touching Pureblood heiresses one minute and Dark Lords the next, devastatingly effective on both.

“It is not I who you should be apologising to,” Voldemort gritted out, “but my son, Harrison Gaunt.” It was the most difficult sentence Voldemort had ever spoken, because in truth, he was thinking, _Yes, you should apologise to me for daring to touch what is mine. Yes, you should plead for your life, for your sanity, for your child. You should plead for the future of your bloodline_.

Harry cleared his throat. “Ah, no, it was just a misunders—”

And then Mulciber knelt.

“Oh, er…” Harry flapped his hands in consternation. Having people pay obeisance to him only unnerved him; what a peculiar child he was, for not enjoying power over others.

“I have more than an apology to offer.” Mulciber’s announcement rang out, and every head in the hall turned to witness the spectacle of Macarius Mulciber, third most important Death Eater and a lord of the Sacred Twenty-Eight, on his knees like a common churl. “My young lord—”

_His_ young lord? Voldemort’s wand-hand twitched.

“—I must not only apologise for not recognising you and for not treating you with the respect befitting your title, but I must thank you for saving my life.” Mulciber folded his right forearm diagonally on his chest, a traditional Pureblood gesture signifying a formal declaration of debt. Magical debt, to be precise. “I hereby declare that I owe you a Life Debt, as my magic will attest. I am now, as I will ever be, at your service.”

There were gasps throughout the hall. That Voldemort’s heir had already won the personal—not the inherited, but the _personal_ —loyalty of a senior Death Eater was not going unremarked on. Bellatrix was all but swooning against a banquet table.

And yet Harry seemed like he wanted nothing more than to disappear.

Voldemort had foreseen the likelihood of this occurring. If magic itself had judged that Mulciber would have died this afternoon if not for Harry, then it would have determined that Mulciber was in Harry’s debt, and would have informed Mulciber of it in no uncertain terms.

But there was a tone, in Mulciber’s declaration, that troubled Voldemort—a tone too ardent, too heartfelt to be acceptably formal. And suddenly Voldemort realised what Harry must have looked like to Mulciber, earlier today—a lovely little lordling with a pouting mouth, dining with Voldemort but foolishly unintimidated by him. But then, that little lordling had stood up to defend Mulciber when Mulciber himself had cowered, and had defended Mulciber with his own body, with his own words, with his own _will_. He had physically put himself between Voldemort and Voldemort’s intended victim. Son or not, he had faced an enraged Dark Lord with unparalleled courage, and he had done so _for Mulciber_.

Well, well, well. Had Mulciber deceived himself into believing that he was favoured? That if not for Voldemort’s interference, perhaps Harry would have accepted his courtship, his kiss?

And then, when Harry _patted Mulciber’s shoulder_ , the naive brat, unknowingly advertising his forgiving nature to a room full of sinners—then, Mulciber’s eyes flicked up to Harry, and in the infinitesimal instant before he dropped them again, Voldemort saw in them what he had suspected.

_Worship_. The sort of worship reserved for a saviour, yes, but also the sort reserved for a lover.

“Let me see into your mind,” Voldemort commanded, and wandlessly compelled Mulciber to raise his head, to meet Voldemort’s eyes. “I must confirm the veracity of your oath.”

Harry, who had kept one hand on Voldemort’s arm all the while, tightened it. “Father, surely that isn’t—”

Voldemort didn’t wait for Harry’s permission. He didn’t need permission, for Merlin’s sake; he was the Dark Lord. He was Harry’s father, and he would safeguard his son’s chastity by any means necessary.

He dove into Mulciber’s mind. Unprepared as it was for the assault, it cleaved like butter under Voldemort’s knife. Beyond the first few layers of horror at having Voldemort invade his psyche was another layer, a layer of strangely religious devotion to Harry for saving his life, and beneath _that_ , at the core of all of Mulciber’s thoughts about Harry, was that first thought, upon that first meeting—

_Now that’s a boy I’d love to fuck_.

And the image. The image of it. Harry’s hair, dark against a satiny pillow. His soft mouth parted on a plea. His legs spread. A wanton, eager thing. Squirming. Begging. A rosy flush on his skin, everywhere. Everywhere.

The world went black.

There was a roar in the distance that might have been the blood in Voldemort’s ears, or maybe it was simply his starving rage. That someone had dared. Dared to imagine Harry like that— _his_ Harry, the boy who had taught him how to feel the snow, who had taught him how to stop fearing death. That they had reduced Harry to a toy, a mere vessel for their lust. As if they deserved—as if _anyone_ deserved— 

The was a loud, deafening crack and a flare of blinding light.

And there Harry was, emerging from the light. No, he was the light. It emanated from him and pulsated around him, as though Harry himself were the heart of a white star, ablaze. His feet did not quite touch the ground, but his hands—oh, his _hands_ , his warm, gentle hands—they were a balm, cradling the sides of Voldemort’s face. A soothing sense of wholeness washed over Voldemort, as if his soul, torn and unhealed as it was, had finally found its missing piece. A bliss so complete it bordered on grief.

Was there a rage in him? Ought there to have been? Harry was murmuring to him. Calling him back. Back from where? From the abyss? It had been so very cold, there. So very dark. Voldemort had been there for years.

Dimly, Voldemort heard the hubbub of many voices lifted in awe and wonderment, and when he looked, Malfoy Manor rematerialised around him. The was a deep crack running the length of the hall, splitting it in two, and the broken floor no longer maintained its illusion of flowing water. On the far end of the crack was Mulciber, smashed against the wall like a bird. Voldemort’s magic must have flung him there.

But Mulciber was still, miraculously, unharmed, for the same light that pulsed around Harry held Mulciber suspended in mid-air, scant millimetres from the wall, encased within a translucent shielding charm.

Most remarkable of all was that there was no trace of Dark magic in the hall. None. Despite the Dark wizards occupying it, and despite Voldemort having sought to dash Mulciber to death against a wall, there was no trace of such a Dark spell having been cast. Not even the slightest signature remained.

Harry had blasted the Dark magic clean away from Malfoy Manor. A historical, unprecedented event.

An event that revealed the Dark Lord’s son as being very much _not_ Dark at all.

Harry withdrew from Voldemort to gauge the damage his father’s temper had caused, and when he waved his hand, the crack dividing the hall repaired itself. Wandlessly. Flawlessly. The earth groaned as it knit itself back together again, and once the floor was whole, the illusion of flowing water was restored. Mulciber came levitating across the hall only to be deposited carefully at Harry’s feet, as if by the talons of a very large, very deliberate beast. A beast formed entirely of light.

The Death Eaters gawked as it passed them by. Walburga literally clutched her pearls.

And Mulciber, the vulgar _degenerate_ , beheld Harry as an apostle beholds a saint.

“Sorry.” Harry laughed hoarsely. “I guess you owe me two Life Debts now.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> voldemort: harry is my precious son and i am his loving dad
> 
> pureblood society: oh so that means you’ll have to walk him down the aisle one day and marry him off to someone else!
> 
> voldemort:


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Professors Voldemort and Malfoy teach “Death Eater Marketing 101.” Harry considers jumping out of the nearest window.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Since the exact date the Abbots became halfbloods isn’t available, I am writing them as still being Purebloods at this time (the early 1960s). I’ve done the same with a few other Pureblood families, as you will see.

In the pin-drop silence that followed Harry’s frankly ridiculous pronouncement, Morgane Malfoy stepped into her role as hostess, second-in-command, strategist and propagandist. It was evident that several Death Eaters, while impressed to the point of being overwhelmed, were also profoundly disturbed by a Light wizard of Harry’s capability amongst them—a threat to their very natures, capable of extinguishing the Dark magic within them with only a thought. And behind that was a more insidious fear… Had their Dark Lord abandoned them and their anti-Muggle philosophy? With a Light-aligned son, did Voldemort still espouse the rights of Dark families to practice their magic freely?

Voldemort would have articulated his ongoing support of them, but he was still too aglow with Harry’s magic to speak effectively. The peace that suffused him was like standing under a cool, sparkling waterfall, and any statement he made in this condition would lack his trademark gravitas. The second consideration was that he was obviously biased; anything he said in support of his own son would not be perceived as an objective assessment of the situation.

So Voldemort gave Morgane but a single glance, and she swept into action.

Mulciber, who was getting shakily to his feet, gave Harry a last worshipful look before melting into the throng. A prudent exit, lest Voldemort decide to crush him like a gnat. Again.

Morgane strode past the retreating Mulciber to curtsey before Voldemort and Harry. Her ice-grey eyes were bright with zeal, and Voldemort realised that she was not merely pretending enthusiasm for his sake, but was truly experiencing it. It was odd to see Morgane so moved; she was generally the epitome of poise.

“My lord,” she said, loudly enough for all to hear, “you have, in one fell swoop, assured our victory.”

Whispers broke out throughout the hall.

“I can see why you kept your heir a secret. Had such a mighty Light wizard—nay, a Light Lord—been sent to Hogwarts, Dumbledore would no doubt have attempted to poach him. Or, if that failed, eliminate him. But now…” She grinned, a ferocious, wolfish grin unlike any Voldemort had ever seen on her. “Now, it is too late. Now, we have an Albus Dumbledore of our own. A Light wizard at full maturation, strong enough to fight any of Dumbledore’s best soldiers, or even Dumbledore himself, and come out victorious.”

The whispers had intensified into an outright clamour. Excitement thrummed in the crowd, and even the Death Eaters who had been wary of Harry were beginning to catch Morgane’s infectious fervour.

“But our advantages do not end there.” Morgane surveyed the Death Eaters, catching each pair of eyes. “With our lord’s heir on our side, there is nothing stopping us from recruiting Light families. And why not? Why should we not seek sympathisers from all branches of magic, to strengthen ourselves even more? Dumbledore is too much of a milksop to tolerate Dark allies, and that will be his downfall. He has limited himself to too small a fraction of the wizarding population. But we are not similarly constrained. We will soon outnumber our enemies, and our lord’s heir will be our rallying cry, a source of new allies and of an invigorating renewal of our cause. Let us grow under Lord Voldemort’s prescient guidance. We cannot go wrong.”

The Death Eaters erupted into cheers, with the notable exceptions of Taliesin Travers and Walburga Black. They would need further finessing, which Voldemort would take care of at a later date. But now it was time for him to enter the conversation. Morgane’s inspired, impromptu proselytising had laid the groundwork for him to characterise himself as a wise leader, not a besotted father. He had also regained his equilibrium; with Harry no longer touching him, he could speak with his customary acumen.

Besides, Harry had been going paler and paler throughout Morgane’s speech, likely horrified at the prospect of being the figurehead of a Death Eater recruitment drive. Voldemort had to draw the Death Eaters’ focus away from him.

“Eloquently put, Morgane,” said Voldemort graciously. “Tell me, my friends,” he addressed his Death Eaters, “how many Light families are there within the Sacred Twenty-Eight?”

“The Abbots,” shouted a Death Eater. “The Weasleys,” shouted another. “The Longbottoms! And the Fawleys!” “The Macmillans! The Prewetts!” “The Shacklebolts! Can’t forget the Shacklebolts!”

“Indeed.” Voldemort nodded approvingly. “No less than seven blatantly Light families of unquestionably Pureblood pedigree, who have _kept_ their pedigree pure for generations—which they would not have done were they as pro-Muggle as some of their representatives claim to be. That makes seven families with seats in the Wizengamot, with the ability to vote up or down on any of our proposals. More than enough to break a legislative tie. And that isn’t even counting the other Pureblood Light families in the Wizengamot, such as the Potters, the Doges and the Browns. Dumbledore may have had them all convinced so far, as the only Light leader to appeal to them, but now? Now, we, too, have a Light wizard, one that is pro-Pureblood and is more in keeping with their traditions. It will not be long before they switch their allegiance to our cause.”

Titus Avery actually whooped. Rosamund Rosier raised her wand to emit a celebratory fountain of sparks, soon to be joined by every Death Eater in the room—including Taliesin and Walburga, because they could not risk alienation by not participating. Bellatrix was trembling with elation. A beaming Abraxas clutched Morgane’s hand as though they were newlyweds at their own wedding.

Voldemort permitted himself a smirk. “Too long has our political position—that of Muggle segregation—been conflated with Dark magic. It was a clever strategy of Dumbledore’s to malign us in front of Light wizards and in front of the public, to exile us to the outskirts of wizarding politics. But no more. We are and will remain the proudest of the proud Dark wizards, yes, but if we wish to preserve our freedoms, it will behoove us to have Light allies who are equally dedicated to preserving Pureblood culture. We will win by any means. And now, we have more means than we ever did before.”

“Gentlemen!” Morgane called out over the scenes of joyful chaos playing out across the hall. “Ladies! Let us now unite in a toast to celebrate Lord Voldemort’s heir!”

Toasts were made, wine glasses were clinked, and some were even smashed upon the floor in jubilation, as though this were a hall of Vikings, not wizards. The Death Eaters were certainly behaving as though they had ascended to Valhalla.

“That,” said Voldemort to Harry under the cover of their Muffliato, “is an introduction to remember. You are an icon, Harry.”

“I don’t want to be an icon.” Harry shook his head. “I never did.”

Voldemort, canny as ever, grasped the significance of Harry’s phrasing. “You ‘never did’? Were you an icon in your original timeline, as well?” That wasn’t a surprise, given how powerful Harry was. Voldemort reflected, with pride, that his son would be an icon in any era.

“You could say that.” Harry frowned. “Honestly, what the fuck? I can’t believe I was worried about me mucking up my manners or you killing someone, when I ended up being the face that launched a thousand Death Eaters!”

“It was _your_ positively messianic display that exposed you as a Light wizard. The responsibility for that revelation rests squarely on your shoulders.”

“Why’d you have to say ‘exposed’? Gross.” Harry shuddered. “I’m not the magical version of a stripper.”

Voldemort was momentarily assailed by the vision of Harry’s clothes slipping off him, wandlessly, on command, one by one. “Nevertheless, you chose to reveal yourself.”

Harry huffed exasperatedly. “What was I supposed to do, let Mulciber get pulverised to death?”

“Yes,” said Voldemort, without hesitation.

“No offence, but you lot are barmy.” Harry clapped a hand to his chest and gasped theatrically. “Oh, no, you can’t use the wrong spoon for dessert! But recreational murder? Perfectly acceptable.”

Voldemort’s wand-hand itched as he caught sight of Mulciber taking shelter behind the hulking mountain that was Goyle. “That wasn’t recreation; that was justice.”

“Right.” Harry regarded him dubiously. “Because having sexy thoughts about your son totally merits complete evisceration.”

“Yes,” said Voldemort again. This time, through his teeth. “If you knew what he was thinking about you—”

“I knew! Maybe not in detail, but I’m not daft. I could tell he was into me.” Harry glared at Voldemort. “That still doesn’t give you a license to murder him.”

Voldemort quirked a brow. “I don’t need a license. I’m a Dark Lord.”

Harry quirked his own. “Well, apparently, I’m a Light Lord. So checkmate, or whatever.”

Voldemort laughed. It was a delighted laugh, booming and rapturous, and the Death Eaters turned to goggle at it as if at a miracle.

“Do you _never_ laugh?” Harry asked him. “No, wait, I bet you do, but it’s a stereotypical evil cackle. Have you ever laughed for real?”

“No,” answered Voldemort, when his laughter had subsided. “I haven’t. Not before you.”

Harry’s expression at that confession was too complicated to unravel.

***

The banquet tables were cleared of fruit by an army of house-elves flitting about so quickly that they were but tiny blurs. Chairs were arranged around the tables at lightning speed, with jade-green dinner plates and silver utensils laid out with the utmost precision, despite the haste. Silken napkins monogrammed with an elegant, stylised _M_ were folded into blossoming white flowers, which sat upon the green plates like water lilies upon lily pads.

“I wonder if Dobby’s mum or dad is in there,” Harry said incomprehensibly, then explained, “Dobby’s a house-elf from the future. He belonged to the Malfoys until I tricked them into setting him free.”

“Whyever for?” Voldemort reached out to adjust Harry’s collar, which had become somewhat askew. “It would only have caused the elf inconsolable distress.”

Harry smiled fondly. “Dobby was different. He’d always loved me.”

And now Lord Voldemort was jealous of a house-elf. Preposterous.

“I was desperate to tell Mrs. Malfoy that I _wasn’t_ anti-Muggle like all of you,” Harry continued, sobering, “but even I have a sense of self-preservation buried somewhere beneath my Gryffindor idiocy.”

Voldemort chuckled. “You said it, not I.”

“Oi! It’s a sign of maturity to admit to one’s weaknesses. Unlike you. But even I have the wisdom to not out myself as pro-Muggle in a manor full of Death Eaters. I might somehow beat Dumbledore in battle,” Harry said with clear disbelief in his own abilities, “but dozens of Death Eaters at once? No.”

“You underestimate yourself.”

Harry snorted. “Better underestimated than dead.”

Voldemort snapped a hand out to grab Harry’s wrist; perhaps it was more possessive than reassuring, but the very idea of Harry being harmed was untenable. “I would _never_ let them hurt you.”

Harry’s complicated expression was back. “Don’t expect me to just lie back and think of England while your Death Eaters use me as some sort of publicity stunt. I mightn’t be able to say anything to contradict them, but that doesn’t mean I can’t sabotage them. I can, and I will.”

“Oh?” Voldemort said indulgently, skimming his fingers lightly up Harry’s arm just to see him shiver. “And how do you propose to do that, my heir? By playing the fool and leading them to believe that you are less valuable than you are? Unimaginative.”

“No.” Harry met his eyes. “By changing your Death Eaters from within. If I can’t stop your cause from recruiting on my behalf, then I can change the cause itself.” Harry’s chin jutted out stubbornly. “That _imaginative_ enough for you?”

“Change the cause itself?” A keen, insatiable curiosity overtook Voldemort, and his pulse quickened. His hand was now on Harry’s shoulder, and he reeled Harry in, until they were near enough to share each other’s breaths. “How do you believe you will accomplish that?”

“I’ve already changed the cause, haven’t I? You and Morgane had to justify my existence by shifting your definition of the Death Eaters from an exclusive Dark magic club to a Light-inclusive anti-Muggle political movement—which they’re still okay with, since Muggle-hating is their main agenda, but it wasn’t the party line you used to establish the Death Eaters, was it?” Harry levelled a defiant glare at Voldemort. “ _Was it_?”

“No,” replied Voldemort, enthralled.

“But it isn’t just the movement I’ve changed. I’ve changed Mulciber. And I’ve changed _you_. With my magic.” Harry shivered again as Voldemort’s thumb brushed his throat. “Light magic changes people, just like Dark magic does. Dark magic encourages negative emotions—like anger, hatred and cruelty—which destabilise the mind. Light magic has the opposite effect. It gentles, it softens. It inspires positive emotions and mental clarity. _That’s_ how I stopped you from making mincemeat out of Mulciber; that’s how I calmed you down. And if I hang around the Death Eaters enough, who’s to say I won’t change them, too? That I won’t reverse the damage Dark magic has done to their souls? That I won’t stop them from being absolute nutters?”

“And you would take the collective reform of all my Death Eaters upon yourself?” Voldemort, palm now cupping Harry’s cheek, tsked. “A heavy burden for a boy so young to bear.”

Harry shrugged. “I’ve borne heavier.”

Had he? But of course he had. Harry had a personality incapable of leaving injustices unremedied—just like his father, although they disagreed on what those injustices were. “Are you declaring war on me, Harry?” Voldemort was filled with such a euphoric tenderness that his words emerged soft as feathers, barely stirring the air between them.

Harry’s eyes darkened with conviction. “Yes.”

Voldemort inhaled sharply. Here Harry was, openly threatening Voldemort’s organisation, and he was beautiful. Voldemort leaned in, his lips brushing Harry’s ear. “I look forward to it, my love.”

When Voldemort withdrew, Harry had gone violently red, his eyes now wide and glassy behind his spectacles. He was adorable like that, flustered and undone.

There was the chime of a spoon tapping against a glass, amplified by a Sonorus. “Our lord and heir, and our esteemed guests…” Morgane gesticulated at the tables now laden with artfully decorated hors d’oeuvres. “Dinner is served.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> the death eaters watching their lord flirt with his son:
> 
> walburga thinking about having to tolerate light magic:
> 
> voldemort’s reaction to harry’s light magic (or, let’s be honest, harry’s everything):


	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> THE LONGEST FUCKING DINNER PARTY IN HISTORY CONTINUES.
> 
> I’m not sure if this is a comedy of manners or a tragedy of manners, but there _are_ manners, of varying degrees.
> 
> Voldemort’s manners would give Jane Austen nightmares.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you guys are wondering what Harry’s feelings for Voldemort are, [here’s a brief description](https://archiveofourown.org/comments/327003760) in a comment I posted in reply to [Seris](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Seris/pseuds/Seris)!

At the centre table were seated the Malfoys and their chief guests, Lord Voldemort and Harrison Gaunt. The Death Eaters seated at the surrounding tables craned their necks to catch more glimpses of the heir. The heir who was now the key to their success.

Harry hunched his shoulders. “I can just hear Sna—my old Potions teacher—referring to me as ‘our new celebrity’. He was a sarcastic prick, but he was accurate.”

“Language, Harry,” Voldemort chided mildly, as Morgane and Abraxas politely pretended that their lord and his son were not conversing under a Muffliato. To Morgane, Voldemort said, “Pardon us, Morgane.”

“Not at all, my lord.” A house-elf poured a silvery, mist-emitting wine into Morgane’s glass, and offered her a choice of appetisers from a tray. She chose a miniature sculpture of goat’s cheese and prosciutto, carved into an ivory-coloured swan with roseate wings. “I am sure you and your son have much to discuss.”

“Nothing I cannot involve my most trusted lieutenant in.” Untrue, but flattering enough. Morgane deserved flattery for her contribution tonight. “Your oratory was galvanising, Morgane. I commend you on your elocution.”

“You are too kind, my lord.” Morgane signalled subtly at Abraxas, who immediately sprang up from his chair and bowed apologetically to Voldemort.

“My apologies, my lord, but I must check the wards. Your son did blow through them like a hurricane through cobwebs.”

Harry winced. “Er, I’m sorry I—”

“It’s no trouble,” Abraxas said hurriedly, clearly terrified of upsetting Voldemort Junior, even as Morgane’s left eyelid twitched at her husband’s social ineptitude. Seeing her reaction, Abraxas tried manfully to convert the potential insult into a compliment. “It was most impressive, considering that many of those wards have been there for generations. But as they were Dark, they may not have withstood that quantity of Light magic… If you will excuse me, I must go and renew them, so that we may be assured of our safety within these walls.”

“You may go,” Voldemort granted imperiously, and Abraxas backed away from them, still bowing, until he almost bumped into a nearby table and had to turn around.

“Abraxas is a charming companion,” Morgane said in a strained tone, “but he is not, alas, the most tactful of men. I am sorry, my lord.”

Voldemort sipped his own wine, a dry white aged to perfection, with the distinctly smoky flavour produced by fermenting the wine amidst dragon eggs. “You needn’t apologise for your mate, Morgane; I am aware that his heart, as it were, is in the right place.”

Morgane’s lips curved. “His heart is mine.”

“As it should be.” Voldemort shared a smile with her; broaching such intimate topics with his low-ranking followers would be unthinkable, but Morgane was not simply a minion. She was among the few that Voldemort deemed his advisors.

“My apologies to you, as well, our lord’s heir.” Morgane fixed Harry with her steely eyes, although their cool grey had warmed infinitesimally. “Abraxas meant no disrespect.”

“You may call my heir Harrison,” Voldemort allowed generously. It was a privilege that Morgane would be thankful for.

But Harry, uncooperative as ever, rolled his eyes—and directly contradicted his father. “Please, just call me Harry. ‘Harrison’ makes me feel bloody old. And, you know, the obsession with eternal youth.” Harry gestured between himself and Voldemort. “Kind of a family tradition.”

Morgane coughed a little, then seemed startled by the laugh that had tried to escape her. She drank her wine as if to stifle her amusement; it was not an amusement she dared show in front of Lord Voldemort. “Ah,” she said instead, delicately. “Harry it is, then.”

They were interrupted by the house-elf making a second round of the table, with more petite food sculptures on offer. Harry picked an arancini ball shaped like a Snitch, with fine, lace-thin, parmesan wings.

“Thanks.” Harry beamed at the house-elf, which hiccuped as if it had no notion of how to react to gratitude, let alone to an acknowledgment of its presence.

Voldemort reflected, bitterly, that his son was more respectful of house-elves than he was of his own sire. The brat. Voldemort waved the house-elf over, claimed a cube of peppercorn-encrusted seared scallop that was fashioned into a black-and-white die, and speared the elf with the iciest sneer in his repertoire. The pathetic creature squeaked and wilted away into nothingness, leaving the tray of entrées on the table.

Harry scowled at Voldemort disapprovingly—disapprovingly!—as Morgane cleared her throat softly and swallowed another mouthful of wine.

“I’ve heard amazing things about your library,” Harry gushed at Morgane, unexpectedly. Voldemort had certainly never waxed lyrical about the Malfoy library, although it was, like all the libraries of ancient Pureblood houses, a nigh-inexhaustible resource of magical texts. Harry gave Morgane a winsome grin. “I’ve heard it has books on all _sorts_ of arcane subjects, like soul magic, death, and time.”

Voldemort stiffened. So that was what his sneaky boy was up to. Harry hadn’t given up on returning to his original timeline, because this timeline had obviously changed irrevocably, and was now an offshoot of where Harry had come from.

It would take Harry decades to discover how to reverse the temporal magic that had brought him here, if it was possible at all. So it wasn’t an urgent calamity. But that Harry planned to leave him— _wanted_ to leave him—cut deeper than any wound. It cut deeper than the boiling agony of creating the Horcruxes, deeper than the vivisection of Voldemort’s own soul. Voldemort kept his mien unmoved, unaffected, but his fingers clenched his fork tightly.

No matter. It had only been a day; it was understandable that Harry still harboured some loyalty for the people of his own timeline, that he still felt an obligation to the duties he had abandoned there. With all his prior talk of carrying a burden, it was plain that Harry _did_ have duties awaiting him in that other world, and being as morally driven as he was, he would be determined to fulfill them.

It was just Harry being Harry. It was not a rejection of Voldemort, but an example of what Voldemort could have from Harry if he persisted—that unflinching, unwavering devotion.

And Voldemort was confident he would win Harry over. Until he did, he would ensure that Harry could not leave him, by undermining Harry’s research and ensuring that he knew every move of Harry’s so that he could counter it with a move of his own. He would also give Harry reasons to stay here, responsibilities that would weigh as heavily on Harry’s conscience as those he had left behind.

If Harry was going to sabotage Voldemort’s quest for Muggle segregation, then Voldemort would sabotage Harry’s quest to return to his own timeline. They’d be even.

Because Voldemort would never let Harry go.

Never.

Meanwhile, Morgane was proving to be as receptive to praise of her ancestral home as any Pureblood. Intuiting Harry’s unspoken request, she issued Harry an invitation not often issued by the Malfoys. “You may avail yourself of our library at your convenience. Everything we have is our lord’s, and, by extension, yours.” 

“Thank you _so much_.” Harry’s appreciation was genuine, and Morgane, unused to exhibitions of genuine emotion from her guests, blinked at him.

“You are welcome.” She smiled. “Harry.”

Why had Voldemort permitted her to address Harry by name? Still raw from Harry’s desire to leave him, it was as though thorns twisted within Voldemort’s very flesh upon hearing Harry’s name in Morgane’s voice. But Voldemort could not torture her for doing what he himself had told her to do.

Besides, he had never tortured Morgane. He respected her. He had to remind himself of that.

“I’m aiming to be an Unspeakable,” Harry carried on spinning his yarn, likely hoping to distract Morgane from his mention of time. “After all, knowledge is power, and I can empower our cause by learning the most closely guarded secrets of the Ministry.”

“An admirable pursuit.” Morgane’s grey eyes warmed further; she was doubtless gratified that her lord’s heir was as committed to the movement as his father. She flicked Voldemort a congratulatory look that had him forgiving her for uttering Harry’s name; yes, she was right to congratulate Voldemort on having Harry as a son.

“I, too, would like to accompany my heir in his research,” Voldemort announced, only for Harry to shoot him a confused glance. “Let us say that my… pursuit of immortality has altered, and that I will no longer be using the tools I have used thus far. Perhaps I was mistaken in seeking to conquer death, when the greater force is time. For what is death to time? Time outlives life and death, and death itself is a product of time. I seek to harness time, Morgane. Have you any books on that?”

Morgane launched into a detailed inventory of the Malfoy library’s books—detailed enough to demonstrate that she herself had read many of them, and was aware of those she hadn’t.

Harry, the foolish boy, was nodding at Voldemort gratefully; he must think that Voldemort had helped him out by explaining why Harry might be researching time.

The truth was, Voldemort had only provided a reason for himself to be as informed about time as Harry was, a reason to be privy to all of Harry’s research, so that Voldemort could foil any attempt Harry made at going back to his timeline. Anything Harry would learn about time, so would Voldemort. And Harry would share the information gladly, relieved by the fact that Voldemort would not be making more Horcruxes. Harry was by nature a saviour; if he could save Voldemort’s soul, and the lives of Voldemort’s victims, then he would do so readily.

That Voldemort would simultaneously be learning how to secure his own immortality was merely a bonus. An immortality through which Harry would accompany him.

It lit an eager fire within Voldemort, as the promise of mastering a new branch of magic always did—but the basis of Voldemort’s eagerness was now the prospect of keeping Harry _forever_ , for as long as they both would live.

***

Abraxas only showed up when dessert was about to be served, and was as transparently excited about it as a child. He leaned across the table to whisper rather loudly to Harry, “Our house-elves have mastered a spell to serve every guest their favourite dessert. Mine’s candied tulips! What’s yours?”

Morgane sighed tiredly—and fondly. “You’ll find out in less than three minutes, Abraxas, when the house-elves pop in. Have patience.”

“Oh. Sorry.” Abraxas drooped, and Morgane put her hand atop his in consolation. Abraxas instantly brightened again. “Well! Speaking of flowers, we have magnificent arches of snowbells on every balcony; if it pleases you, my lord, you may wish to venture outside after dinner and appreciate them. I wove every bloom onto the vines myself. I quite like flowers, you see.”

Harry smiled the exact smile he’d bestowed on Andromeda—wistful and nostalgic. “I have a friend who is a passionate Herbologist. He’s an expert.”

“Is he? Why, that’s tip-top! I’d like to owl him if he’s amenable; I’ve been experimenting with clippings of the Hoary-Nosed Magnolia, very rare and very temperamental.” Abraxas said ‘temperamental’ with the type of affection ordinarily reserved for an errant toddler. “I do so adore flowers. They are always sources of joy; not one person exists who is immune to them.”

Voldemort was.

Abraxas radiated an innocence that was painfully blinding. How Morgane could tolerate living with a man of such spotless character was beyond Voldemort. Although Harry’s character was spotless, too, and Harry had his own brand of innocence. The innocence he’d had when standing under the snow today.

There was an appeal to innocence, Voldemort admitted to himself. But only if it was accompanied by courage, by strength. Innocence too weak to defend itself was of no interest to Voldemort; maybe Morgane was satisfied with being Abraxas’ protector, but Voldemort preferred a more equal union. Yes, he sought to protect Harry, but he was always conscious of just how equipped Harry was to protect himself.

It was an intoxicating combination—innocence and strength. Innocence enough to tempt sinners, and strength enough to destroy them.

Before Abraxas could regale the table with yet more sentimental drivel about flora, the house-elves appeared with the desserts. Before Abraxas went a dish of candied tulips, before Morgane a bowl of _rizogalo_ , before Harry a suspiciously large slice of treacle tart—was that elf from before already favouring Harry, like Flopsy did?—and before Voldemort, a plate of…

“Is this a joke?” Voldemort asked slowly, every syllable imbued with menace.

For before Voldemort was a plate containing nothing but a Muggle chocolate bar, still in its wrapper.

The trio of house-elves serving them quivered, wringing their floppy ears. “W-w-we is s-s-sorry, Master Lord, sir! Th-th-this is what the s-spell did!”

Harry was gaping at the bar with his jaw hanging open. Morgane and Abraxas were peering at it in bafflement, not recognising its Muggle origins; to them, it must resemble an unfamiliar item from Honeydukes.

But Voldemort knew. Oh, he knew. This was the same chocolate he had eaten thirty years ago, at the age of seven. It had been his first ever treat at Wool’s Orphanage, his first ever taste of happiness, his first ever taste of _hope_. The hope that perhaps the world was not as dark and dismal as it seemed.

No. He could not have it now, could not admit that he had ever loved something Muggle, that he had ever been as hapless and stupid as to think—

“Gotta love a good ol’ [Mars bar](https://www.pinterest.co.uk/pin/21040323230348247/),” Harry joked, attempting to lighten the mood. It wasn’t shocking that Harry knew; he’d been raised by Muggles, and would know a Muggle confection when he saw it.

“A chocolate named after the god of war?” Abraxas marvelled, as Harry emitted a strangled noise. “Why, I’d never. No wonder it is our lord’s favourite.”

“It. Is. Not. My. Favourite,” Voldemort ground out.

“Of course not! Such an undignified dessert—” Abraxas turned hastily to the house-elves and gave them a wholly inadequate glower; the buffoon could have someone step on his neck and not have the capacity to muster any indignation. “Redo the spell. You must have made a mistake.”

They hadn’t. That was the problem.

But Voldemort could not admit to it.

Morgane, evidently deciding to discipline the house-elves herself, straightened up to interject—only to be beaten by Harry.

Harry, who said solicitously, “Let’s not be harsh on the house-elves; it’s not their fault that my father has tastes he’s _uncomfortable with._ ” Harry flashed Voldemort an evil smirk. How had Voldemort ever thought him innocent? “Why don’t we get him some of what I’m having, instead? He _relishes_ treacle tart. Doesn’t call it a sugary abomination, at all.”

Voldemort glared at him.

But Harry’s smirk only curled higher, devilishly enchanting on that sweet, sinful, lovely mouth.

Morgane looked back and forth between them, for once at a loss for words. She could not, in her wildest dreams, decipher the many layers of Voldemort’s and Harry’s exchange. In the end, she conceded, commanding the house-elves to fetch Lord Voldemort some treacle tart.

When it arrived a scarce fifteen seconds later, replacing the chocolate on his plate, everyone at the table began eating.

Voldemort cut as small a bite of the tart as he could conceivably cut, and ate it as grudgingly as if it were a pellet of poison.

It was so cloyingly, nauseatingly saccharine that it made his teeth ache.

Harry grinned at Voldemort like the little demon he was. A drop of treacle clung to Harry’s full lower lip like a drop of dew upon a rose, but shinier and stickier.

Voldemort came to the surreal realisation that, in this moment, he knew what Harry’s mouth tasted like, because he was experiencing that very taste himself. He reached out to cup Harry’s chin, surprising Harry into stillness and sweeping his thumb along that plush, sticky lower lip.

“My dear,” he murmured, “you were right. I am a convert. I daresay I have a new favourite dessert.”

Harry sat there, frozen, as Voldemort retracted his thumb and deliberately, methodically licked it clean. At every lick, Harry grew redder, his eyes hazier. He bit his own lip, as if chasing the sweetness Voldemort had stolen from him.

Revenge duly taken, Voldemort resumed his gradual consumption of his treacle tart. Yes, his manners had been somewhat lacking, but he was the lord of all present, and they could hardly be outraged by him.

“Goodness,” said Morgane, faintly. “The house-elves have outdone themselves, have they not, husband? My dessert is positively heavenly. Yours, too, I presume?”

“Mm-hmph,” agreed Abraxas, busy stuffing himself with candied tulips.

Morgane drank her entire glass of wine.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> purebloods: *trying to maintain centuries of good manners*
> 
> voldemort, shoving all their manners aside:


	10. Chapter 10

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Voldemort makes it so that nobody else can dance with his son. Because that is perfectly natural. Isn’t that what overprotective dads do? Dance with their sons so that nobody else can? Marry their sons so that nobody else can? _Fuck_ their sons so that nobody else can? Absolute 100% pure fatherhood.
> 
> You know that “Tale As Old As Time” song from Beauty and the Beast? Well, Voldemort and Harry reenact that scene here, except with Death Eaters watching them. It’s the most romantic scene in the story so far, and I know what y’all are thinking: “Dude, romancing your own son isn’t appropriate fatherly behaviour.” Yeah, I know, but try telling Voldemort that. (Or don’t; he’ll kill you.)
> 
> morgane: finally, we’re at the end of this disastrous feast!
> 
> voldemort:

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We meet Dean’s grandfather!
> 
> I’ve always headcanoned Dean Thomas as this badass, anti-fascist artist who, under Hermione Granger’s Ministry of Magic, is commissioned to replace all the ugly supremacist art in the Ministry (which depicts wizards and witches as being above house-elves, centaurs and other “creatures”) with art that is more inclusive and, dare I say it, revolutionary. Including positive, empowering depictions of Muggleborns! Meanwhile, an adoring Seamus Finnigan cheers his brilliant husband on from the sidelines.
> 
> Dean obviously hates the Death Eaters, and his surname is widely assumed to be Muggle in origin. But I’ve changed canon somewhat to make it so that Dean inherited the “Thomas” surname from his Pureblood magical father, who was murdered by Death Eaters soon after Dean’s birth. Dean was then raised as a halfblood by a single Muggle mother (until she remarried later on).
> 
> I’m interested in exploring what could have led to his father’s murder. In my take, it wasn’t just because Dean’s father was morally opposed to the Death Eaters—though he was—but also because Dean’s _grandfather_ had been an active Death Eater and Dean’s dad was expected to join up… but didn’t. Basically, he tried to pull a Regulus Black flip on them and was executed for it.
> 
> I try to explore that backstory a bit here, through Dean’s creepily awesome Death Eater grandpa.
> 
> ALSO I’M SO SORRY FOR FALLING BEHIND ON REPLYING TO COMMENTS, LIFE IS CRAZY RN BUT PLEASE DO STILL COMMENT AND FEED THE BEAR

The tables were banished after dinner in order to clear the hall for dancing. The chandeliers automatically dimmed, matching the precise hue of the moonlight filtering in through the windows, so that the hall appeared moonlit, coolly and softly illuminated. It was several shades brighter than the snowy midnight vista outside, but still ethereal enough to give the room a fairytale glow.

Along the walls, the tapestries transformed from depicting forest scenes to depicting sparkling, shooting comets. An orchestra of silver instruments, sans players, materialised upon a podium and struck up a tasteful waltz as the Death Eaters circulated amongst themselves and chatted. A few married couples had already taken to the floor, for it was widely understood that Voldemort did not dance, and thus was not to be waited on to launch the proceedings.

Morgane, having overseen the clearing of the hall, begged leave from Voldemort to dance with her husband. Voldemort granted it, for if they were dancing with each other, neither of them were dancing with Harry.

Harry, who was drawing many a hopeful eye. Under the guise of politesse, it was quite acceptable to dance with the heir, to curry favour with him, to wrangle him into marrying a prettily clad heiress. Rosier’s sixteen-year-old daughter, Livia, was pale-haired, willowy and bedecked with jewels that caught the light like tiny stars. Nott’s niece had the face of an angel and the smile of a serpent. Walburga—who was constitutionally incapable of giving up—was badgering Andromeda to ask Harry to dance, as was evidenced by the terror returning to Andromeda’s countenance. Bellatrix was far more willing, fixing Harry in her sights as a Basilisk would fixate on prey.

And then there were the men. Titus Avery, himself a young, unmarried lord with the much sought-after qualities of holding ten seats in the Wizengamot and five different Gringotts vaults, surveyed Harry from head to toe, and evidently found Harry more appealing than the surplus of Pureblood maidens populating the hall. The Lestrange patriarch, a paunchy, balding pervert who must think himself old enough to get away with a ‘grandfatherly’ dance, was taking hesitant steps in Harry’s direction. Mulciber was gazing longingly at Harry, but, finally comprehending the risk to his life, asked the recently widowed Mathilda Rowle to dance, instead. He still gazed at Harry over Mathilda’s shoulder, though, as if that was forgivable.

These men. Voldemort longed to burn out their eyes. To plunge a fiery poker into every offending socket, until all that was left was a putrid, smoking hole. If only he could blind them all so that they never looked at Harry again. If only he could break every pair of legs that walked towards Harry, shatter every spine that turned towards him.

But perhaps Voldemort did not have to worry overmuch, because Harry himself did not want to dance with any of his admirers. He didn’t hide behind his father—for hiding from any peril was against Harry’s Gryffindor disposition—but Harry did clutch Voldemort’s arm again, not so much to appease Voldemort as to remind him of their agreement.

“You promised to stop me from stepping on Pureblood toes, as much as I’d love to do so,” Harry said to him, hushed. “You _promised_.”

“I did.” Voldemort handed his wine glass to a passing house-elf. He was about to sweep his son away before the race to Harry—currently being contested between Lestrange, Avery and the Rosier girl—had an undisputed winner, but he was suddenly accosted by Thomas.

Taxomin Thomas, who was allegedly the most terrifying of Voldemort’s Death Eaters, despite never having killed or tortured. Violence was not Taxomin’s preferred weapon.

Art was.

Art, and his eerie, milky, all-seeing eyes.

Taxomin was a soul-seer, a very specific subcategory of seer that saw not the future but people’s souls. Soul-sight was unblockable by any known magic; even Occlumency could not impede it, as it was the soul, not the mind, that the soul-seer saw.

The Thomases were a Pureblood line of soul-seers who had dedicated themselves to the art of portraiture, for only soul-seers could paint likenesses of wizards and witches such that they retained their original personalities and could be conversed with as living persons. Soul-seers could look upon a subject while alive—or while captured by acquaintances’ Pensieve memories—and seal the subject’s ‘soul-print’, or the fingerprint of their soul, into paint.

It was an art that surpassed the mere animation of ordinary magical paintings and photographs, and it was valued as the most important art in wizarding society, for it preserved more than just the faces of those that had passed away. Living portraits recorded wizarding history itself. A portrait painted by a soul-seer could recount the times it had lived in, could offer guidance, and could participate in conversation with as much liveliness as the subject of the portrait.

Taxomin was a relentless soul-seer sorely lacking in social graces, and he profoundly discomfited those around him.

On the plus side, Taxomin’s approach had prevented all other approaches; any suitors heading towards Harry now swiftly reversed their footsteps.

On the minus side, Taxomin could _see_ Harry. Not with any carnal intent—for Taxomin was supremely unconcerned with mortal follies such as sex—but with spiritual intent, the intent to see Harry’s true self, to lay Harry bare in ways that went beyond the skin. Taxomin could see Harry in ways that even Voldemort could not. And to Voldemort, that was an unpardonable transgression.

“Taxomin,” greeted Voldemort, coldly. “The bill outlawing unregistered soul-seeing was voted down thanks to Mulciber’s connections. Your concerns have been dealt with.”

“Have they, my lord?” Taxomin, who was of the same height as Voldemort, bowed perfunctorily and without any reverence. That, too, irked Voldemort, that this man who could see souls had seen Voldemort’s and had not been impressed by it. “As long as soul magic is perceived as Dark, the Ministry will continue to seek to regulate it. And I do not want my art regulated. I refuse to file reports and await signatures from some aesthetically bankrupt Ministry official before engaging in my art.”

That was Taxomin’s reason for joining the Death Eaters; they advocated the deregulation of all Dark Arts, including soul magic, which fell within Taxomin’s purview. “All you need do is continue to paint eavesdropping charms into certain strategically placed portraits, and to pass me information about my opponents’ souls.” The portrait of Ariana Dumbledore in Aberforth’s home had been an especially devious masterpiece, unknowingly relaying information to Taxomin, and thus to the Dark Lord. Painted charms were virtually undetectable, and required unparalleled skill with magic to implement. Hence their usefulness as surveillance devices. “If you serve me well, Taxomin, I will not only defend your interests against the current Ministry, but will write your interests into law once I myself reign over the Ministry.”

“Thank you, my lord.” Taxomin’s eyes inevitably swung to Harry—or seemed to, for Taxomin did not have any pupils to distinguish from the white, swirling sclerae of his eyeballs, and it was difficult to determine exactly where he was looking.

Taxomin was silent for a long interval, as though mesmerised by what he saw. A growing, carnivorous hunger overtook his features, a frightening delirium similar to that of madness.

Harry shrank back.

Voldemort moved to shield him from Taxomin, but Harry stepped forward again, as if embarrassed by his own temporary retreat. Such pride. Such idiotic, adorable, Gryffindor pride.

“You must let me paint your portrait,” Taxomin pleaded with Harry from within the depths of his unholy passion. It was an uncharacteristic plea; given how gifted Taxomin was, more wizarding families begged _him_ to paint them than he ever actually managed to paint.

“No, thanks,” Harry declined, weakly. “I’m fine with talking mirrors. I get enough unsolicited advice from them.”

“But if—”

“Taxomin.” Voldemort was not surprised that Taxomin found Harry enthralling, given how beautiful Harry was, and how beautiful his soul must be… Oh, how Voldemort envied Taxomin for seeing it. Nevertheless, Voldemort could not condone Taxomin’s behaviour. “Contain yourself, lest you insult my heir. I believe you witnessed what I did to Mulciber for the same crime.”

“All punishment would be worth this,” Taxomin said absently, without even having the courtesy to turn to Voldemort. Taxomin was still immobilised by what he saw in Harry. “He holds a piece of your soul within his own, did you know, my lord? A shard of onyx within transparent quartz—fragments of darkness within a dazzling light, not a cancer but a tangling as inseparable as lovers’ limbs. An intimacy beyond all intimacies.”

A wicked thrill ran through Voldemort at that. He _had_ sensed, from the very beginning, that Harry was his son not only physically, but magically—that Harry shared aspects of Voldemort’s magical signature, that he had some of Voldemort’s essence within himself.

Now, Voldemort had learned that it wasn’t just his essence that Harry bore. It was Voldemort’s very soul.

The scenario was uncannily similar to the creation of a Horcrux, although that was impossible, as there were no precedents for human Horcruxes in the history of magic. But maybe Voldemort had invented an alternative; maybe he’d cursed Harry’s mother with a slow death throughout her pregnancy, so that with every second of life that drained away from her, an additional sliver of Voldemort’s soul implanted itself in the foetus she carried. She would have died upon giving birth, with nine months of incremental sacrifice creating a Horcrux-like growth within Harry’s otherwise untarnished soul. It might—theoretically—be doable. And if it was, it would be the trickiest soul magic ever performed.

Magic that had joined Voldemort and Harry as no two people on earth were joined.

But Voldemort could not let his secret delight show, because Harry was palpably appalled by the reference, however oblique, to his mother’s death. A pity, that Harry could not rejoice with Voldemort upon discovering this even deeper connection between them. He would, ultimately. He _would_.

Voldemort shooed the painter away. “Go, Taxomin. Consider me merciful for not cursing you on the spot; I have only refrained from doing so because that would distress Harry even more than your crudeness did.”

“I apologise,” answered Taxomin, just as absent-mindedly as before, as though torture did not frighten him. Plainly addressing Harry and not Voldemort, he requested, “Please do contact me if you change your mind.”

Then, without so much as a by-your-leave, Taxomin drifted away to examine the tapestries. He drove Death Eaters away as he went, like the grisliest ghosts of Hogwarts drove off students. There was no tribulation that those with blackened, corrupted souls feared more than an inspection of their souls—which was why Dumbledore and his ilk incorrectly thought that a wizard with Taxomin’s skill-set would not be welcome among the Death Eaters.

He wasn’t welcome, anyhow, so much as he was useful. That was all that mattered.

As for Voldemort, his soul was so tainted and mutilated that even having its mutilation seen did not upset him. He was what he was, and he wasn’t what he wasn’t.

Except that with Harry, he was _more_. More whole. More unified. More himself. A superior version of himself.

And now Voldemort knew why.

“Merlin’s bollocks,” swore Harry feelingly. “I wasn’t ‘distressed’, I was just boggling at the fact that a bloke wearing my friend’s face is some type of… creepy soul voyeur. My friend’s personality isn’t like his grandpa’s, apparently, though they both love to paint. That’s—that’s about where the similarities end. This ‘Taxomin’ is a fucking nightmare.”

Voldemort adjusted his holster, within which his wand was abuzz with excitement. Harry had a part of Voldemort inside him, and the knowledge was as electrifying as being struck by lightning. “A nightmare? The intelligence Taxomin acquires for us through his portraits is irreplaceable.”

Harry snorted. “Yeah, and so is he, or he’d already be dead. He freaks everybody out, including the Death Eaters. They’d smother Taxomin with his own pillow if they could.”

“An accurate assessment.” Voldemort espied Lestrange, re-emboldened by Taxomin’s departure, approaching Harry again. “Are you still interested in Operation Avoid Dancing With Death Eaters?”

“Of course I sodding am. Although it’s funny that Operation Avoid Dancing With Death Eaters is _also_ Operation Dance With The Dark Lord. As if that’s better. It’s probably even worse.”

“Any complaints, Harry, and I will abandon you to the dubious mercies of Bellatrix Black.”

Harry grimaced, but countered, “No, you won’t. If she even breathes on me, you’ll disembowel her in public and mount the entire Black family’s heads on pikes. Which is a bloody peculiar reaction for a father, you realise.” He paused. “Or for anyone.”

“Is it?” Voldemort shrugged. “I am only protecting my son.”

Harry mumbled about treacle tarts and evil villains, only to squeak like one of his beloved house-elves when Voldemort wrapped an arm around Harry’s waist.

The music, appropriately, swelled. “Tchaikovsky, Harry.”

“Chai what? I’m not into those fancy teas.”

Voldemort sighed. What a philistine his heir was. It was a situation that Voldemort would have to rectify, and quickly. Potentially with home tutors, if they could be trusted with Harry. If anybody could be trusted with Harry. “The composer. Tchaikovsky. This is a waltz he composed.”

“He did a great job of being stunningly boring, then. Someone ought to tell him that.”

“Tell him that?” Philistine, indeed. “He’s dead.”

“Oh.” Harry scuffed his shoe awkwardly. His embarrassment should have been just recompense for humiliating Voldemort with that treacle tart, but instead, Voldemort felt a rush of tenderness, of protectiveness. His Harry was so very innocent, even if he was occasionally a dessert demon. Because even then, Harry’s mischief wasn’t malicious. It was never intended to harm.

Now, as Harry ducked his chin shyly, he seemed more innocent than ever. Surrounded by evil-intentioned Death Eaters but incapable of evil intentions himself.

Voldemort took Harry’s hand gently, carefully, acutely aware that he was touching something pure, something sweet.

Harry went pink, jolting a little at that simple touch. Palm to palm, fingers intertwined. “Er… Where do… my hands? Where do I put my hands.” He briefly squeezed his eyes shut and muttered, “Smooth, Harry.”

“Here, at my shoulder. Your other hand remains in mine. And my arm guides you, like this.” Voldemort drew Harry in, until their bodies were almost flush, and then twirled them about in an elementary pivot. “There. Like that.”

Harry glanced up at Voldemort and then away, as though he could not bear to look at Voldemort from this proximity. “You’re too tall,” Harry complained. “You’re too… everything.”

“Everything?”

“ _Everything_ ,” Harry said firmly. He was still pink, and Voldemort contemplated whether Harry’s cheeks would feel warm from the blush. The blush darkened as Voldemort studied it. “Aren’t you…” Harry faltered. “Aren’t you supposed to be teaching me?”

“Yes.” The reply emerged oddly hoarse. Voldemort slid his right hand up Harry’s back, silky and slender as it was, up that fitted waistcoat that clung to the subtle flaring of Harry’s waist and to the narrow breadth of his shoulders. Leaving nothing about Harry’s shape to the imagination. “Observe. I clasp you beneath the arm, my palm on your shoulder-blade, our chests pressed together, my hips against yours—”

“Could you not?” Harry burst out desperately.

Voldemort blinked at him. “Could I not what?”

“ _Narrate_ everywhere we’re touching, and how we’re touching. That’s not—that’s not necessary. Just lecture me boringly on footwork, or whatever.”

Voldemort huffed in amusement. “As boring as Tchaikovsky, then?”

Harry glowered at Voldemort, still flustered. “Boringer.”

“‘Boringer’ is not a word.” Voldemort should have been appalled at Harry’s blatant abuse of grammar, but Voldemort’s arms were full of Harry, and Harry’s rainforest scent was all around him, somehow muskier from this close. And Voldemort gave up. He didn’t have the capacity to teach Harry how to dance _and_ how to speak simultaneously. His concentration was failing him.

“It is now,” Harry insisted stubbornly, and frowned down at their feet, both pairs encased in the finest Italian leather. The tips of his ears were red, but he continued doggedly, “Okay. So who starts?”

“I do, since I’m leading. It’s called a box step. My left foot goes forward first, and your right foot mirrors it. Very good. You’re doing very well.”

Harry’s ears grew redder. “No praise, either.”

“Which of us is the instructor, Harry? I should be making these decisions, not you.”

“Control freak,” Harry said under his breath, uttering an alarmed, “Fuck,” when he almost trampled on Voldemort’s foot. “Sorry.”

“It is quite all right.” Voldemort led Harry through the box step, again and again, until Harry became comfortable with the easy rhythm and relaxed into it. The Tchaikovsky waltz was replaced by a Strauss, and the Strauss by a Lehár, but Voldemort did not relinquish Harry. He could not, lest Harry be claimed by somebody else. 

As he and Harry spun around on the enchanted floor, Voldemort snatched glimpses of a scowling Walburga, a befuddled Abraxas, and a straight-backed Morgane standing beside her husband and nursing yet another glass of wine, which she raised in a toast when her eyes met Voldemort’s.

The occupants of the hall were all, to varying degrees, gawking at the spectacle of their lord dancing; Lord Voldemort had never stooped to as meaningless an activity as dance before.

It wasn’t meaningless with Harry. Nothing was.

Having danced for more than an hour, Voldemort and Harry had transitioned from the formal discipline of the waltz to a looser, more fluid exchange. They swayed in place, matching each other naturally. Harry had his head resting on Voldemort’s chest, and Voldemort had his nose buried in Harry’s gossamer-soft, fragrant hair.

Harry gasped when Voldemort’s lips brushed Harry’s forehead, running along it lightly, across his hairline and down to his jaw. “Are you sure we should be—”

“Hush.” A fond but feral possessiveness had Voldemort tightening his grip when he noticed Avery and Lestrange eyeing Harry, and before he knew it, Voldemort was sweeping Harry out of the ballroom and into the relative privacy of a curtained alcove.

“Uh.” Harry swallowed audibly in the dark. “What are we… doing… here?” 

_They were ogling you. I could not bear it._ “Abraxas did entreat us to appreciate his flowers, and behind these curtains is the door to a balcony. Would you not like to see his much-vaunted snowbells, and to congratulate him on them?”

Harry exhaled shakily, as if in disappointment or relief. “Yeah, Abraxas could use some positive reinforcement. He reminds me of my herbologist friend. Amazingly talented, but not particularly confident in himself.”

Voldemort suppressed his own displeasure at Harry describing other men as ‘amazing’. He wanted this night to end pleasantly, for Harry to remember it as ‘amazing’, too.

So Voldemort snuck a hand through the parting of the curtains, groped around for the doorknob concealed behind them, and rotated it until the door clicked open.

Voldemort braced himself for a gust of chilly wind that never came. The balcony that Harry and Voldemort now stood upon was as temperate as the hall itself, clearly designed for comfortable viewing.

And what a view it was.

The balcony itself was shimmering and insubstantial, as though they were standing upon a translucent carpet of moonlight. Above them soared an arch of thousands of snowbells that bore the heady perfume of jasmine flowers, and that tinkled, like bells, at every breeze.

Beyond the balcony, the snow-covered Malfoy estate stretched endlessly, rolling hills of white upon white. The snowfall had ceased, though the fallen snow was still fashioning itself into animated mythical creatures, and the ice crystals still hung like ornaments from the trees.

And over it all stretched the night sky, the stars glittering like a spill of diamonds across the blackest silk.

Harry inhaled in wonder. His eyes were wide as they drank in the scenery, but Voldemort could only bring himself to watch Harry—how Harry’s mouth had parted, as if in a kiss. How angelic Harry was, crowned by snowbells and stars, a fae spirit alighting as delicately upon this earth as a butterfly upon an outstretched hand.

Harry turned to him with a smile, only to be taken unawares by Voldemort’s expression. Harry’s eyes widened even further.

Tentatively, Harry asked, “Shouldn’t you be admiring the view?”

“I am.” Voldemort held Harry’s gaze.

And Harry was struck silent, standing there as though bewitched, when it was he who was bewitching. He shivered when Voldemort used the hold he still had on Harry’s arm to draw Harry in, until they were near, so near.

“You know,” Voldemort spoke into the silence, at last looking up at the stars, “I was often asked, as a young man, what attracted me to the Dark Arts. They assumed it was the power, or the lure of immortality, or some misguided instinct towards self-betterment. But it was none of those temptations.” Voldemort looked back down at Harry. “It was what I could _see_. The night reveals the stars, Harry. We cannot see them by day. Only within darkness can certain sorts of beauty be seen; only in pitch-blackness can some truths be perceived.”

Harry was regarding Voldemort with the same wonder he’d directed at the landscape. “Oh,” he said haltingly. “I—I never thought of it like that.”

“Not many do. There are beasts in the night, admittedly, and devourers aplenty. An unwary traveller may get lost in the shadowed woods or consumed by the shadows themselves. But there are _sights_ , Harry, that can only be seen at night. Sights like these. They are no less exquisite for being Dark.”

Harry mulled over Voldemort’s confession. He could have easily chosen to counter the points Voldemort had made, or to question them, but he did not. He just absorbed them as they were, and then said, out of the blue, “I was thinking about your chocolate.”

Voldemort tensed.

“Relax, it wasn’t anything bad. Only… it was sad that you didn’t get to eat your favourite chocolate. I mean, it was right there, in front of you, but you still couldn’t bring yourself to have it. That’s the definition of misery, isn’t it?”

“No, Wool’s Orphanage was the definition of misery.” Voldemort smiled ruefully. “Besides, what will the Death Eaters say if their lord gluts himself on Muggle confections?”

“Isn’t forbidden fruit the sweetest?” Harry stared up at Voldemort, his eyes hooded and strange. “Nobody has to know. You don’t have to tell them, you can just… have what you want.”

At Harry’s words, there was a swoop low in Voldemort’s belly, as if at a warning or a sign of danger. But Harry’s breaths were mingling with his, in hot, moist puffs against each other’s mouths, and all Voldemort could do was stare back at Harry as if hypnotised.

“So, anyway,” Harry murmured, “Happy birthday.”

And he rose on tiptoe to kiss Voldemort on the cheek.

Petal-soft. Barely there.

But a kiss, nonetheless.

It was the softest thing Voldemort had ever felt, but it rocked him, like a glass tumbler knocked off a table. It was only a matter of time before he shattered. And yet, the fall was such ecstasy.

Voldemort almost wanted to castigate Harry for it, because it was unfair. It was an ambush. Voldemort was caught off-guard. His heart twisted upon itself like the rope of a noose, choking him. It was perfect, and it was unbearable, and it _hurt_.

When Voldemort stayed rooted to the spot, Harry withdrew and chuckled at Voldemort’s face.

“Oh, dear,” said Harry. “Did I break you? I broke Lord Voldemort. The power he knows not, I guess.” The incomprehensible statement was followed by Harry poking him in the side. “Oi. Your Death Eaters _will_ kill me if I’ve broken you beyond repair. Come back to me, will you? Hello? Earth to Voldemort?”

Voldemort did return. Eventually. But the patch of skin that Harry had kissed still burned, like a brand, and Voldemort vowed to always remember it.

The first kiss Harry had ever given him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> voldemort dancing with harry while the death eaters (unwillingly) cheer him on:


	11. Chapter 11

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Even Voldemort’s subconscious has blue balls.
> 
> Heck, at this point, even Voldemort’s blue balls have blue balls. Which is a mental image I profusely apologise for giving to you.
> 
> The events of this chapter can be summed up as follows:
> 
> 1) “Hi, my name is Lord Voldemort and I’m so happy I found Horny Dads Anonymous. I’m proud to say that I’ve been sober for approximately zero seconds. I spend every waking moment thinking about my son and every sleeping moment dreaming about him. Wait, why are you all looking at me like that? Isn’t that normal?”
> 
> 2) “I’m not a creep for watching you sleep, Harry. All dads watch their sons sleep. That’s what they say at Horny Dads Anonymous. What, I touched you, too? Is that wrong?”
> 
> 3) NO PLOT. ONLY FEELS.
> 
> Also, I still happen to be behind on replying to comments, because life is certifiably bonkers right now, bUT PLEASE DO STILL COMMENT! I read each and every review! Thank you!
> 
>  **EDIT:** ALSO! THIS CHAPTER CONTAINS ART BY [MONA](https://twitter.com/MONAMARIA_HP/status/1293354990233423884)!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> voldemort: ah yes, i often dream about penetrating my son. metaphorically, of course. it’s all very metaphorical.
> 
> morgane: my lord that is a SEx dReAM where’s my fucking wine
> 
> voldemort, demisexual disaster: sex dream?
> 
> morgane: abraxas. ABRAXAS we need to give our lord THE TALK
> 
> abraxas: what’re you calling me for, i’m not doing it
> 
> morgane: *heavy, wine-scented sigh*

He dreamt he was smoke—a charcoal-dark cloud of smoke with trailing tendrils, like fingers, that ghosted over Harry’s sleeping form. Across Harry’s skin, which was frustratingly intangible, not sleep-warm and silken as it should have been but distant, like a touch through a veil. Harry slept the sleep of the innocent, deep and trusting, clad in nothing but black satin sleep shorts, like a child. He was lying spreadeagled on his back, his limbs flung in all directions. Defenceless.

Voldemort drifted over Harry, around Harry’s arms, between his legs, across his quietly rising and falling chest—and then, finally, into his parted mouth and into his ears. Finding entry at last. Piercing Harry’s body in search of the flame-bright filament that was Harry’s soul.

Voldemort never found it. Or rather, he didn’t find it before he woke up.

When he _did_ wake up, it was to an unremitting thrum of magic singing through him, reminiscent of the thrum that had occasionally kept Tom Riddle up as an adolescent. With it came a restlessness that drove him seek its source.

So he threw his sheets aside and padded across the bedroom.

The door between his and Harry’s quarters was no longer Disillusioned, for Harry had now been apprised of its existence. Voldemort turned its handle and slunk soundlessly into Harry’s room. The gloom coalesced into items of furniture, and the four-poster bed where Harry slept hulked like the shape of a shipwreck on a midnight beach. While Voldemort could see adequately with his serpentine eyes, the dimness did still obscure what he saw.

Harry wasn’t sleeping in any position even remotely resembling the Harry from Voldemort’s dream—defying Voldemort even in this. All that could be seen of Harry was his face and his nest of messy hair; the rest of him was bundled up in blankets. A protective cocoon. Harry was curled up on his side, trying to occupy as little space as possible… perhaps because he had grown up in a cupboard, where there _hadn’t_ been sufficient space. It was as though Harry was hiding away from all the hurts the world had inflicted on him, and his sleep was not peaceful but disturbed. He twitched, his eyes moving behind their lids. He must be dreaming.

What was he dreaming of?

Drawn as if by a magnet, Voldemort approached the bed. He peered down at Harry, noting that only Harry’s foot poked out of its cocoon. Harry looked so small like this, so vulnerable. Not like the carefree Harry of Voldemort’s dream. Because, asleep or awake, Harry did not pose for anyone, did not pretend. Even in sleep, he refused to comply with Voldemort’s fantasies of him. How stubborn Harry was—stubborn despite his fragility.

Voldemort was overcome by an adoration so absolute that it was painful. He yearned to touch, to comfort, to soothe. It was an emotion so foreign to him that he did not recognise it at first.

When he did, he reached out—hesitantly, as he never had before. His fingertip brushed the arch of Harry’s foot, which was as fine-boned and lovely as the rest of him. Harry withdrew it an inch further into the blankets, and Voldemort smirked.

He trailed his finger up Harry’s foot and around the delicate ankle bone, again and again, in light, teasing circles—until Harry made a mewling, complaining noise that _seared_ itself into Voldemort’s brain, that cauterised the throbbing wound of Voldemort’s yearning with sheer, blinding heat.

Voldemort stumbled back.

He hadn’t stumbled since childhood. Stumbling was for the uncoordinated, the unwieldy or the unprepared—none of which Voldemort was.

Until now. Until Harry.

Now, Voldemort was uncoordinated, his hands seeming too huge upon Harry’s whipcord-thin frame. He was unwieldy, neither his actions nor his thoughts obeying his instructions. And worst of all, he was unprepared—perpetually unprepared for Harry, like those recurrent nightmares in which one was late to an exam, and yet could not locate the examination room.

Except that this was less nightmare and more inchoate, longing dream. Which was baffling, because Harry was right there. Close enough touch.

So Voldemort moved to touch Harry again, like a man driven mad by thirst, by the seductive compulsion of an Imperius. He touched Harry on the ankle again, and then higher, up under the blankets, his palm around Harry’s calf, so smooth that Voldemort trembled at its perfection. His hand shifted even higher, past Harry’s knee to his thigh. The skin there was still smooth, feverish and velveteen—endlessly velveteen, like the substance of sleep itself—

And there was a wand pointed at Voldemort’s forehead.

Harry was awake, sitting up and gulping in air, his eyes round and shocked. He squinted owlishly at Voldemort’s silhouette. “Wh-what… Voldemort? What’re you doing here?”

Voldemort had, thankfully, just snatched his hand away, age-old battle instincts kicking in. His throat—dry as sand—unstuck itself so that he could rasp, “You were having a nightmare.” It might even be true. Harry _had_ been dreaming.

It didn’t explain why Voldemort had a knee planted on the mattress, or why he was looming over Harry as if about to pounce—but Harry was preoccupied enough, distressed enough by whatever he’d been dreaming.

“Merlin, I’m—I’m sorry.” Harry dropped his wand-arm. “Did I scream? I usually cast a Muffliato on my bed before sleeping, even at Hogwarts, but I think I was too tired after yesterday’s party and I just… forgot. I must’ve woken you up. Sorry.”

It should have been Voldemort apologising. “What was your nightmare about?”

Harry laughed jaggedly. Bitterly. “You. The other you. Ordering your lackey to cut me and make me bleed.”

Voldemort’s hand fisted in Harry’s blankets. The rage struck him like he’d been backhanded across the face, the fury kindled like a match from the bonfire that always blazed within him. But more devastating than that was his desire to _destroy_ his other self, to torture him as he had tortured Harry, to murder him a million times over—

And the parallel, equally violent urge to press his own mouth to Harry’s scars, to press his _teeth_ , and to bite Harry wherever Voldemort’s other self had marked him. To bite viciously, blood-coppery and deep. To leave scars that belonged solely to him.

“Hey.” Harry had roused further into wakefulness, sensing the turmoil radiating from Voldemort but misunderstanding it. “I know it wasn’t you. He would never… hold me. Like you did. During the waltz. He wouldn’t come to wake me up from a nightmare, for fuck’s sake. So don’t freak out? If that’s what you’re doing? It’s just… I can’t forget him that easily.”

_Forget him. I will make you forget him. Even if I must Obliviate you, purge every impression he ever left on you, erase every injury, replace every scar—_

Voldemort sucked in a shuddering breath. He slid his hand across the blankets again, above them this time, all the way up Harry’s body, a long, slow, deliberate caress, the purpose of which was to claim as much as it was to calm.

Harry went still, as though petrified by a Basilisk. Voldemort himself felt Basilisk-like, as if his eyes were burning into Harry through the dark, as if they were glowing as red as they _felt_.

They must be, because Harry flinched when Voldemort’s hand reached his face, when Voldemort cupped it with every ounce of the care he now knew he had in him, even through the inferno that roared within him and urged him to grip harder, to push down, to mark.

No. He would not take the violence within him out on Harry. It took determination greater than anything Voldemort had ever applied to any circumstance, including his own death, but he did succeed in not mauling Harry where he lay.

And Harry responded. Gradually, incrementally, he relaxed, until his cheek was leaning into Voldemort’s palm.

“You’re not him,” Harry whispered, to himself or to Voldemort.

Such trust. Such beautiful, undeserved, misplaced trust.

But it was enough. Enough to feed the beast that had arisen within Voldemort, enough for him to bid Harry a fatherly goodnight and escape to his own bedroom.

He could not sleep. What haunted him, incongruously, was the memory of how skinny Harry’s calf had been, skinny enough for Voldemort’s grip to encompass it entirely. And how desperately Voldemort had wanted, in that instant, to _squeeze_. To apply pressure until Harry bruised. To drag Harry close by that leg—to devour him, even if he fought—

What was wrong with Voldemort? He had never before wanted to devour a human being. Devour death, yes, but never to devour someone, body and soul. He had scarcely touched Harry worth the telling of it, but his ears still thundered, his pulse still raced, and his ribs ached as though they were caving in. Oh, the softness of Harry’s skin, the softness of his _voice_ when he’d declared his trust in Voldemort. Voldemort did not know which condemned him more. All he knew was that he was sick, and inflamed, and joyous, and starved.

Perhaps that was all Voldemort was, now—a twisting sinew, an agony, a hunger. An addict crashing into withdrawal in the absence of his drug.

***

The next morning, Harry was both oddly solicitous and embarrassed. He darted about nervously, like a doe, tiptoeing around Voldemort as though it was Harry’s fault for having a nightmare, and not Voldemort’s fault for summarily losing his mind over it.

The madness had fled by dawn, to Voldemort’s relief, and he struggled to recall what precisely had set him off, whether it had been Harry’s nightmare or Harry himself. Distanced by the steady, honeyed trickling of hour upon hour, yesternight’s hunger seemed ridiculous, immature. A regrettable regression to Voldemort’s more barbaric self—the self he had sworn not to become, and for which he had sworn to give up making Horcruxes.

He could not allow Harry to perceive that side of him, to let it surface where Harry could see it. Voldemort had been fortunate, the night before, to have darkness on his side; had Harry been able to see Voldemort’s no doubt predatory snarl, the game would have been up.

Voldemort could not permit it to happen again. It would ruin everything he was attempting to build with Harry. The kiss Harry had given him. The trust.

The trust. The _trust_.

It was the first time Voldemort had ever been trusted. It was flooring. Crushing. Wondrous. Alien.

As alien as Voldemort was starting to feel within himself.

Voldemort watched, bleary-eyed, as Flopsy bullied Harry into consuming more breakfast than Harry would ever have consumed on his own, which alone was worth rewarding the house-elf in some manner. How could one reward a house-elf without freeing them? A ludicrous picture flitted through Voldemort’s imagination—of him handing tickets to the Quidditch World Cup to Flopsy, in a scented and stamped envelope, much as he’d once done to the incumbent Senior Undersecretary at the Ministry. Flopsy might just faint.

Voldemort’s amusement must have shown itself in his snort, because Harry smiled at him. Harry’s hair was sticking up at every angle, and his bare feet were tucked under him as he sat cross-legged on his chair. His nightshirt was askew, exposing a collarbone, and his sleep shorts—the only detail Voldemort had got right in his dream—were rucked distractingly up around his thighs. His mouth glistened, smeared with buttery crumbs. His smile was lopsided, charming, and utterly irresistible.

  
**[[ART BY MONA](https://twitter.com/MONAMARIA_HP/status/1293354990233423884)]**

It was all unfair. Fundamentally unfair. As unfair as Harry’s kiss had been, yesterday.

That kiss.

Voldemort drank his tea without tasting it, tasting instead the wintry breeze on the Malfoy balcony, where Harry had drawn near to him, and had listened to him, and had kissed him. A promise. Why had it felt like a promise? A promise of what?

“So, um,” said Harry, as soon as Flopsy had collected their dishes and returned to the kitchen. “I’m really sorry. Not just about the annoying nightmare stuff—”

“It wasn’t ‘annoying’, Harry,” Voldemort corrected him mildly. “I was only worried about you.” _And what I might do to you._

“I’m sorry, anyway! About that, and about the whole… forbidden fruit… comment.” Harry’s words got more hushed as he continued, as though he was pulling them up from some underground bunker where he had kept them locked. “That wasn’t—I must’ve been sloshed, honestly, a bit tipsy on the Malfoys’ best alcohol. That comment, it wasn’t—it wasn’t appropriate—”

Voldemort regarded Harry with increasing confusion. “What about it wasn’t appropriate?”

Harry stared at him.

And stared at him.

“Right,” Harry said, after a solid minute of ringing silence. “Right, of course. So you didn’t—” Harry shook his head vigorously. He’d gone scarlet. “Never mind.”

“No, say it, Harry.” Voldemort tried for patience, despite his frayed nerves. “What didn’t I do?”

“Youdidn’tmind?” Harry blurted, all at once. “The kiss, and the—the weirdness. Surely you noticed the weirdness. I _broke_ you.”

“Yes, you did, and if you found that ‘weird’—”

“No, _I_ was weird. You were just… normal. For you. Which is weird for everyone else, granted, but you were just…” Harry flapped his hands at Voldemort. “Being you. Overreacting to a simple display of affection like you’d never even been kissed on the cheek.”

There was another ringing silence.

“Oh,” said Harry, in mounting horror. “ _Oh_. Shit. Sorry, I’m messing this up…”

“Harry.” Voldemort exhaled heavily. “Be quiet.” So his son had been kissed on the cheek, before. No wonder he had. Who could have resisted? Harry attracted people like sugar attracted flies. Anybody could have kissed him. A friend. A sisterly figure. That thrice-damned godfather. Anybody.

“Er… Before you set the room on fire with your _eyeballs_ , maybe drink your tea?” Harry suggested meekly.

Voldemort drank his tea. He could not afford to be reduced to the animalism of the previous night. Not if he hoped to keep Harry. So he bore his jealousy, and bore it, and bore it, until the tea did not scorch his throat like poison.

“So, you’ve never been…?” Harry gestured at Voldemort. “On the cheek…?”

“I have never pursued friendship, kinship or romance. So nobody had any cause to kiss me on the cheek. I _have_ pursued sexual congress when it was advantageous, but I never pursued it for its own sake, or out of endearment. I was certainly never kissed on the cheek in the midst of it.” Kissing was an act he had once disdained as sentimental and pedestrian, but now that he had experienced it in the context that it was intended to be experienced, he knew it was far more than that. So much more, in fact, that its profundity dwarfed him in his ignorance.

Voldemort was momentarily self-conscious. Would Harry deem him foolish for not understanding a phenomenon so well-understood by everybody else?

But Harry was only quiet. Pensive. He was studying his own cup of tea as if reading the tea leaves in its dregs. “It’s like the chocolate,” Harry observed thoughtfully. “You haven’t tasted much sweetness, have you?”

_Compared to your sweetness? Not at all._ But Voldemort could not bring himself to say that aloud. “Don’t pity me,” he growled.

“I’m not pitying you!” Harry straightened his shoulders obstinately. “I’m just saying—if I—if you—if it’s not weird. Maybe you could. Taste. More?”

It was Voldemort’s turn to stare at him.

“Of the sweetness,” Harry said in rush. “I mean—not in an inappropriate—not like—just. Family. Like family. Family sweetness.”

Was Harry offering him more kisses? What _was_ Harry offering? Whatever it was, there was only one answer Voldemort was willing to give. “Yes,” he replied quickly. Too quickly.

Harry gave him a dazzling grin.

Voldemort retreated behind his teacup again. His heart palpitated, rabbit-fast, half-eager and half-apprehensive.

Just what was Harry about to unleash on him?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> me: and here we have harry potter, bisexual disaster—
> 
> harry: i resent that. you make it sound like my bisexuality is what makes me a disaster. EVERYTHING about me makes me a disaster.
> 
> me:
> 
> harry: no, wait, that didn’t come out the way i wanted it to…
> 
> voldemort: i think it’s perfect.


	12. Chapter 12

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Leave it to Voldemort to turn a visit to a bookshop into some kind of existential crisis.
> 
> He’s such an emo goth kid. Yes, I know he’s thirty-seven. Still an emo goth kid. 
> 
> And yes, he’s both emo _and_ goth. You’ll see why.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> HERE HAVE ANOTHER CHAPTER IN LESS THAN TWENTY-FOUR FUCKING HOURS BECAUSE BASICALLY I HAVE NO CHILL
> 
>  **EDIT:** THIS CHAPTER NOW HAS [ACCOMPANYING ART](https://imgur.com/a/khyVaXR) BY HYPNODISC! ALL HAIL HYPNODISC!

Harry’s insistence on researching temporal magic led them to Flourish and Blotts after breakfast. The bookshop was as crowded as it always was at this time of the year. Hogwarts was due to reopen in two days, and those students who hadn’t bought their textbooks yet were swarming around the shop like particularly excitable bees. There was the persistent smell of old parchment, new ink, and crisp, freshly-bought uniform robes.

Voldemort would never, given the choice, have visited a bookshop when it was busy. The very purpose of visiting a bookshop, as far as he was concerned, was to be able to browse in privacy, to soak up magical knowledge for hours on end, without being rushed, jostled, or shoved about like a mere… human being.

“Oh my god, they’re _tiny_ ,” Harry exclaimed as a group of second-years bustled past them like a school of miniature pilot fish, teeming with the sort of bubbly optimism that made Voldemort ill.

Much more endurable were the hollow-eyed seventh-years lurking about the advanced magic sections, clearly beset by examination anxiety even six months in advance. This year would decide their future careers, after all, and those that weren’t brainless Quidditch enthusiasts knew better than to let a single day of study go to waste.

“We shall not purchase any books today,” Voldemort proclaimed. “We will only note any titles of interest, and will mail-order them under my cover identity in a few days. It wouldn’t do for us to be on record as patrons obsessed with temporal magic.”

“Okay, okay. Subterfuge. Very Slytherin. I get it.” A flash of red hair caught Harry’s attention. “A Weasley.” Harry appeared as fond as he did sad. “Or an ancestor of the Weasleys. I don’t even know what their name is, now… Prewett, maybe, if not Weasley?” He sighed. “It’s like being in a foreign country. All these people I should know, but don’t.”

“These Weasleys were your friends, then?” Voldemort was irritable enough at being in a bookshop and being unable to browse comfortably; Harry’s fondness for the entire wizarding world wasn’t helping.

“Not just friends. More like a second family. _Don’t_ ,” Harry said sternly, before Voldemort could even speak, “plot to wipe out their bloodline and personally assassinate their every descendant, please.”

Voldemort smiled. Meanly. “How very prescient of you, Harry.”

“Pre-what?” Harry scowled. “What does that even mean?”

“It means prophetic.” Forget about a Latin tutor; Voldemort would have to hire Harry an English tutor, first.

“I’d better not have been prophetic.” Harry prodded him in the chest. “You, Mister Father Lord, sir, have to stop planning the mass-murder of everybody I consider family.”

“Would you care to supply me with a list?” Voldemort asked innocently. “That way, I can ensure that I do not accidentally or deliberately harm any of them.”

Harry rolled his eyes. “You’ll just use it as a to-do list. Or a to-kill list, I should say.”

“Would you have me swear more oaths, my dear? I would swear a thousand.” Voldemort had intended his declaration to be sarcastic, but it emerged as earnest as a wedding vow. He coughed to hide his embarrassment.

Harry studied him narrowly. “I’m hoping our relationship has developed to the point where I can trust you not to dismember my friends and relatives. Correct me if I’m mistaken.”

Oh, how inconvenient Harry’s trust in him was. How inconvenient, and how impossible to resist. “You are not mistaken,” Voldemort admitted, unwillingly, haltingly. Damn it all. What had he sold his freedom for?

“Good,” said Harry brightly, and _took Voldemort’s hand_.

Voldemort blinked down at it, stunned. Was this the beginning of Harry’s campaign of ‘family sweetness’? Harry had never held his hand before; the waltz didn’t count, for it had been Voldemort who had initiated the hand-holding. This was Harry, voluntarily doing what none other had ever dared to do.

“Did I break you again?” Harry teased him, and Voldemort blinked anew, mesmerised by the sly curve of Harry’s mouth.

“I am… well,” Voldemort responded, unwieldy as a simpleton or a drunkard.

Harry raised an eyebrow. “And monosyllabic, apparently.”

“Sayeth the barbarian who had no notion of what ‘prescient’ meant.” Voldemort’s facility with language had, thankfully, returned. Sooner than it had before. Perhaps it was a process of acclimatisation.

“Oh, hush. We can’t all be Hermiones.”

Voldemort would have asked what a ‘Hermione’ was, or why Harry classified Voldemort as one, but Harry was lugging him towards the back of the shop, where the books on niche, lesser-sought topics were stored. That Harry was familiar enough with Flourish and Blotts’ layout implied that he must have known a different Hermione before, for Harry himself was not possessed of such a passion for books that he would have been a regular customer on his own.

Hermione. Another name for Voldemort’s ‘list’ of untouchables.

Voldemort reflected that had his trademark, selective Muffliato not been in place, the Hogwarts students and their harried parents might have been aghast at murder being discussed so openly. As it was, no shoppers commented on Harry and Voldemort vanishing into the rear of the bookshop. The odd girl or boy glanced at them with the startled appreciation that Voldemort had always taken as a reaction to his own attractiveness, but it was less tolerable when targeted at Harry.

Voldemort sneered at them—the sneer he reserved for the recipients of his Crucio—and they melted away, fleeing this curtained nook of the bookshop before Harry had even noticed them.

But Harry had, evidently, noticed _him_.

“Stop that,” Harry said absently, even though he was perusing a book with a gilt hourglass on its cover.

“Stop what?” _You didn’t see me_. Voldemort felt a peculiar combination of guilt and rebelliousness, like a four-year-old attempting mischief behind his mother’s back.

“I can feel you.” Harry waved at Voldemort without bothering to look at him. “Your magic, doing the thing.”

Voldemort was alarmed. “What thing?”

“The dark, scary, coiling serpent thing.”

Voldemort froze. “You can feel it.”

At last, Harry met his gaze. “Yes. Why? You can feel mine, can’t you?”

He could, but he had assumed it was his own unmatched sensitivity to magic, and Harry’s obvious power, which, when Harry was at peace, emanated from him in waves of quiet, radiant light.

As it was doing now. Harry smiled at him, as damnably all-knowing as Dumbledore, except that Dumbledore’s smiles had never been so exquisite, so arresting, so paralysing.

“ _You_ stop that,” Voldemort uttered meaninglessly, and Harry chuckled.

“Do you mean the feeling-your-magic bit, or the smiling-at-you bit?”

Both. Neither. Merlin, everything Harry did, Voldemort wished he would do forever. Which was an additional reason for them to conquer time—and mortality—together. For Voldemort’s sensitivity to magic was no longer unmatched. He had found his match. “I… I thought you could only sense my magic when yours was interacting with it.”

Harry closed his book and tilted his head. “When is our magic _not_ interacting? Taxomin said a part of your soul is in mine. Do you imagine there is any space between us, no matter how far apart we stand?”

Voldemort stood there, dumbfounded. His heart stopped. His magic swelled, like a tide, washing outwards to mingle with Harry’s.

Harry gasped, and that gasp had Voldemort striding towards Harry, pushing Harry against the bookshelf and pressing his mouth, hard, against Harry’s throat.

“Don’t.” Voldemort’s hand came up to tangle in Harry’s hair. “Don’t move. Harry. Don’t.”

If Voldemort sounded strange—wrecked, overwhelmed—it was because he had never been so known, so accepted, so _felt_. Harry was feeling him as nobody else had, beyond the skin, soul-to-soul. And Voldemort was feeling Harry, too, the brilliance of him, the boundless warmth. The merging of their magical cores erupted from them in a breathless, marvellous surge of magic that threatened to white out Voldemort’s vision. The bulb overhead exploded.

The ever-present hubbub from the main area of the bookshop fell silent. The shop’s customers must have been swept up in the backwash, immeasurable as it was, and Voldemort hated them for it, for experiencing even a fraction of what Harry was, of what he and Harry were, together.

Then, the murmurs broke out.

“Oi,” shouted somebody. “Who set off a bloody bomb?”

“At least it wasn’t a dung-bomb,” somebody else said, reasonably. “Or worse. It didn’t hurt anyone, whatever it was.”

Much grumbling followed, and order was restored.

Harry, pinned to the bookshelf, was still gasping. His pupils were blown black, and there was a wild crackling about him, an electricity that leapt and sang, that sparked a similar electricity within Voldemort.

Voldemort dragged his lips up the column of Harry’s throat, intoxicated, _glutted_ on raw magic as though he had somehow connected to magic’s essence itself. Not even the Darkest spell had fed him so, fulfilled him so. His fingers unclenched from Harry’s hair and drifted downwards, his knuckles ghosting lightly down the side of Harry’s face, a touch as electric as the magic that danced between them. Harry quivered, letting out a muted noise, and Voldemort was gripped by a tenderness so immense that it shook him apart. He _was_ shaking, he realised dimly, just as Harry was, as they were against each other.

Harry’s arms rose to wrap around Voldemort’s shoulders, sweetly desperate, urging their bodies even closer. The shivers that raced through them both began to ease, leaving only a sensation of tremendous _wholeness_ , and Voldemort’s eyes fluttered shut. He was simultaneously more awake and more rested than he had ever been. And he knew, beyond the shadow of a doubt, that Harry was the same. They were reflections of one another, infinite reflections, mirror to mirror.

Minutes might have passed, or hours, or years.

It was only the shuffling of footsteps just beyond the curtained nook that reminded them of the world beyond. Harry’s arms lowered, but his face—oh, his _face_ —

He did not want to part, either. He could not bear it, any more than Voldemort could.

“Harry,” said Voldemort, reaching out to twine their fingers, and Harry didn’t resist. He was loose-limbed, lost-seeming, his eyes filled with a wonder that bordered on fear. “Harry. It is all right.”

“Is it?” Harry’s tone was low, rough, rattled. He looked down at the book on time that he had been reading, which had fallen to the floor, like he didn’t recognise it. Like he had forgotten why it was important.

Good. _Good_. A vicious thrill of victory ran through Voldemort, and Harry frowned at him as if he knew. Of course he knew. He knew all that Voldemort was. He _was_ all that Voldemort was. They were no longer joined as they had been moments ago, but they were joined nevertheless. They shared a soul. Harry had said so himself.

“We need to leave.” Harry picked up the book and set it back on the shelf. “I’m not—I don’t think I can take—people’s eyes on me, right now.”

“Except for mine.” Voldemort stated it with as much surety, as much confidence, as he had ever had.

Harry laughed mirthlessly. “Except for yours.”

Why was Harry not happy anymore? He had been, just now. He _had been_. Slotted against Voldemort like he belonged there, he had been _happy_.

Harry pulled his fingers away, but he did it gently, like a benediction. Like forgiveness.

Forgiveness for what? What had Voldemort done wrong?

And suddenly, Voldemort couldn’t breathe. The wholeness that had so completed him was abruptly torn in half, ripped from him like the Hogwarts letter had once been ripped from his grasp by the matron of Wool’s Orphanage.

“No,” Harry said, still so gently. “Tom. Didn’t you tell me? It’s all right.”

It wasn’t.

It wasn’t all right.

They left the bookshop as unobtrusively as they had entered it, unheeding of the crowd, and only later did it occur to Voldemort that Harry had called him _Tom_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 


	13. Chapter 13

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Harry and Voldemort finally have The Talk. No, not that one, although they probably need it more. I mean the other one. The one about time and fate and morality… and just how far Voldemort is willing to simp for Harry’s fine ass.
> 
> (Hint: Not even the multiverse could contain the distances Voldemort would traverse to tap that ass. Luckily, it’s right there in front of him. Right there, Voldie. Grab it!)
> 
> If you fancy some actual, serious (gasp!) meta about Harry’s and Voldemort’s many Issues™, you can find it [in this comment thread](https://archiveofourown.org/comments/332003494).
> 
> Once again, thank you for continuing to comment on this story even though I often fall behind on replying! I cherish each comment like a star that just landed in my lap, so _thank you_ for filling my inbox with love. I appreciate it more than I can say!
> 
> OH AND IF YOU WANT TO READ ANOTHER DADDYMORT STORY THAT I JUST STARTED POSTING, IN WHICH VOLDADDY REALLY DOES RAISE A BABY HARRY, THEN YOU CAN DO SO [HERE](https://archiveofourown.org/works/25785202/chapters/62627290)!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> voldemort: i am a badass dark lord and none dare stand against me
> 
> harry: i… actually have a life outside of you
> 
> voldemort:

Riddle Manor was draughty and cavernous, the shapes of its emptinesses like relics carved by long-dead hands. Its corridors echoed like the tunnels of an abandoned catacomb. This was where the defeats of Voldemort’s past had gathered, their ghosts waiting behind every door, above every rafter. Now, even with Harry to occupy it, the house had that same quality of desolation, a wasteland of old wood and dark corners. It had taken on its master’s anguish.

Because Voldemort knew he was losing Harry. The very idea of Harry not being here—of him not making tea in the kitchen, of him not curling up on the couch, of him not badgering Voldemort to be mindful of house-elves—was unbearable. How had Voldemort lived here before?

He hadn’t, Voldemort realised. He hadn’t lived here, or anywhere. He may as well have been dead. Only now was life flowing back into him, like blood flowing into frostbitten limbs—and oh, how it stung, that glorious fire consuming his once-frozen flesh! His every cell ached with new life, as fragile as the first shoots of spring sprouting from the wintry, deadened earth, and only with this life-force coursing through him could Voldemort comprehend what a coffin he had lived in. Indeed, he had carried his coffin around with him, convinced that it was a shield. Even as he died slowly within it, he had been convinced—

But no. He would not go back to that. He _could_ not go back to that, to clawing at the walls of his own self-made coffin as he hurtled into madness, alone. That was his path no more. For Harry had changed his path.

Why could he not change Harry’s? It wasn’t difficult to intuit what Voldemort was losing Harry to, _who_ he was losing Harry to. It was to Harry’s original timeline. To that other Voldemort.

But Voldemort would not permit it. Voldemort would destroy all else that laid claim to Harry. If needed, he would destroy time itself.

Voldemort took Harry’s coat from him when they crossed the threshold into the house, and the hat-stand snatched both it and Voldemort’s cape up with an eager, spindly arm.

By unspoken mutual agreement, they walked to the study. Thanks to Flopsy, the fireplace was lit and a tray of tea and scones awaited them beneath the nigh-intangible shimmer of a warming charm. But Harry was as disinterested in the food as Voldemort was, with Harry’s usually brilliant eyes a subdued, haunted green, turned inwards. Voldemort wanted them turned on him instead, wanted to crush Harry against him as he had in the bookshop, wanted and wanted and _wanted_. The want burned through him like lightning through a blackened oak, splitting him in half and leaving the very core of him gaping open like a wound. A wound that only Harry’s presence, Harry’s magic could soothe.

“Harry.” Voldemort snagged Harry’s sleeve. Beseeching. Entreating. His voice was heavy with need, more bestial rumble than human speech. “Again. Please.”

Harry swallowed audibly. He did not ask what Voldemort was pleading for, because what else could it be but that Voldemort wished them to be joined again, to be in union again? Harry only withdrew into the study as Voldemort shadowed him, as Voldemort sat beside him on the settee, close but not close enough. That Harry glanced at him timidly, only to glance away again, showed that he understood Voldemort’s request well enough. That he understood it, but would not comply. A maddening defiance.

Having Harry in the bookshop had not sated Voldemort’s appetite but had driven him even further into the treacherous depths of his hunger, its boiling waves concealing carnivorous creatures with jagged, rending teeth. Creatures that yearned to sink their fangs into Harry, to taste Harry even at the risk of drawing blood.

Oh, how easy it would be to bend Harry backwards over the upholstered couch, to cover Harry’s body with Voldemort’s own and to seal Harry’s protests with a hand over his mouth—that soft, soft mouth—until their magical cores fused regardless, despite Harry’s resistance, helplessly coalescing into a molten, throbbing whole.

But that would injure Harry, and injure the tenuous trust that they were building between them. So all Voldemort could do was sit there and stare at his hands—his useless, empty hands, incapable of capturing the very thing he desired the most. Incapable as they had never been before. Never had Voldemort felt so powerless; all of his magic and all of his knowledge were meaningless against Harry’s denial of him. How could Voldemort keep Harry, when he could not keep even his own self-respect? How could he be a father if he could not protect his son even from himself?

The questions chased themselves in his mind, around and around, until he was sick of them, until he was dizzy with unfulfilled longing. He stretched an arm out to encompass Harry’s slender frame and to draw Harry in against him, and when Harry’s breath hitched, another vestige of self-control crumbled within Voldemort.

“Harry.” Voldemort was determined not to act like the greedy, pathetic fool he was. “You are planning to leave me.” There. A bald statement of fact.

“Yes.” Harry looked directly at Voldemort, with no pretence whatsoever, and it was only Harry’s palpable sorrow at his own admission that prevented Voldemort from imprisoning the boy forever, from tying Harry to his own bed so that he could not escape. Perhaps with a strip of unbreakable, coal-black dragon leather around his pretty ankle—and a lovely, silver, tinkling chain that would announce Harry’s every movement on the bed, his every struggle—

But Harry would get away. Of course he would. His power would blast the manor to rubble around him, and he would walk out, never to return again. Leaving Voldemort as hungry as always. Unfed.

So it was only natural for Voldemort to reach for Harry’s skin, for some measure of the union that was denied to him.

Voldemort slid a hand under Harry’s shirt, tugging it free from his trousers and trailing light fingertips across Harry’s back, which arched.

  
**[[ART BY MONA](https://twitter.com/MONAMARIA_HP/status/1294045998885539840/photo/1)]**

“D-don’t—” Harry squirmed. “Don’t touch me like that, please. It makes it h-harder for me to leave you—”

“Then don’t,” Voldemort murmured into Harry’s ear. “Stay here. With me.”

Harry trembled, his hot breaths quickening against Voldemort’s jaw. “I can’t,” he said brokenly, and then Voldemort’s fingers feathered across his waist and up his chest, seeking out Harry’s heartbeat and grazing Harry’s nipple in the process. “I c- _can’t_ , oh, _fuck_ —” Harry wriggled out of Voldemort’s embrace and fled to the opposite end of the settee, folding his legs up between them like a barrier, as if to hide behind them. It shouldn’t have been so adorable, so childlike, but it was. Harry was panting, two spots of colour high on his cheeks. “I told you not to touch me like that!”

Voldemort watched him lazily, a snake watching its prey. He would strike again when it suited him. “Why not?”

Harry gaped. “Why _not_? You can’t seriously—” Harry gaped even more. “You don’t. You literally don’t get it, do you?”

Voldemort folded his hands atop his lap to prevent them from reaching for Harry again. “Get what?”

But Harry just shoved his slightly fogged-up glasses up his nose. “I’m not a… a possession of yours, an object to be touched and squeezed and petted whenever you like! I’m not a stress ball!”

“A what?”

“A rubber ball that Muggles squeeze when they’re stressed. To relax them. I’m a _human being_ , Tom, if you hadn’t noticed.” And Harry was colouring again. “Er… sorry about the ‘Tom’. You did insist I call you ‘father’ or Your Lordship or whatever, but calling you ‘Tom’ keeps you separate from the Voldemort in my memories.” Harry cleared his throat. “So, can I? Call you that? I’ll go back to calling you ‘Voldemort’ if you prefer.”

Voldemort considered it. He had always despised that name. He despised it still. But spoken by Harry, it wasn’t inferior or mediocre or humiliating. It was special. Important. Precious. And, strangest of all, it was not ill-fitting. “Yes,” Voldemort agreed eventually. “You may address me as Tom.”

Harry lit up.

So Harry _did_ want to stay; he was still invested in this timeline and in this Voldemort. Emboldened, Voldemort said, “You say you are planning to leave me, child of mine, but you underestimate the complexity of time travel— _and_ dimension travel—if you surmise that you can manage it in less than five decades. You will be with me, beloved, for longer than you have calculated. So there is no reason for you to withhold yourself from me, to withhold the bond between our souls from fulfilment. It is not as though you will be gone tomorrow.”

Harry shrank in on himself. “I might be,” he mumbled, and Voldemort immediately straightened.

“What does that mean?” Voldemort hissed. When Harry winced, Voldemort saw that he had seized Harry’s wrist tightly enough to bruise it. But he could not let go. Not when letting go could lose him his son.

“I’m…” Harry inhaled unsteadily. “I’m not totally clueless about what brought me here. And I… I may know where to find it.”

Voldemort breathed in, breathed out. Evenly. Calmly. He did it as he used to when he was learning Occlumency, when he meditated in order to organise his mind. It worked, not only because it was an age-old, much-practiced method, but because rage would not win Voldemort this argument. He could not afford it, could not afford his anger at Harry having _kept_ this from him. “Where.” Harry flinched at the whip-crack sharpness of the word, but Voldemort only clenched Harry’s wrist tighter, until he could hear its bones grinding. “ _Where_.” Calm. Calm.

“The Lestrange vault at Gringotts. Or maybe the Black vault. I was—and don’t ask me what I was doing there, but—I was in the Lestrange vault when I… I touched a golden artefact and it brought me back here. I can’t recall exactly what it was, but at least I remember where I found it.”

“Why the Lestrange vault _or_ the Black vault?” Though Voldemort could guess.

“Um, Bellatrix Black married Lestrange in my timeline, so I’m not sure if the… the time-warping device was initially in the Black vault and was transferred to the Lestrange vault upon their marriage, or whether it had always been in the Lestrange vault. So it could be in either of those vaults in this timeline.” Harry gulped. “Or neither, I s’pose, if it hasn’t been put there yet. But it must have been. The current—er, back-in-my-time current—Ministry said that a Time-Turner was the only tool for travelling back in time and that it was very limited, so this device must be positively ancient, ancient enough to have been forgotten. It must’ve been in Gringotts for centuries.”

“I could go to Gringotts right now,” Voldemort said idly. “I could go there and annihilate it. Annihilate what could take you away from me. _But_ ,” he said as Harry stiffened, “I will not. Because if I do, I will lose you as surely as I would to that infernal time-travelling device. I would never have you again. You would leave me to join Dumbledore’s band of merry Muggle-lovers, and would spend the rest of your days battling me to the death. What would I profit from that?”

“But it’s… it’s not just about profit, is it? Not for you.” Harry hesitated, as though on the verge of sharing a secret. “Don’t you find it odd that you care so much about me? So quickly? It’s barely been two days, and we’re already—” Harry stuttered, going incriminatingly red. “Th-that is, you’re already—”

“I’m already what?” Voldemort released Harry’s wrist and surveyed the bruise blossoming there with satisfaction. “Endlessly charmed by my perfect son? By the prospect of having a family? An equal? A companion? That my foolish soul is so addicted to yours that it searches for you even in sleep?”

Harry’s eyes widened. “You… you dream about me?”

“Always.” The word was dark. Solid. Absolute.

Harry shuddered.

“I see you in dreamscapes as men wandering in the desert see mirages. You may dream of me as a monster, Harry, but I dream of you as sustenance.” Low and fevered, Voldemort went on, “If you give a man dying of thirst his first taste of water, will he not drink his fill? Will he not chase every drop? Even if you tell him the water is poisoned, he will still drink. Because he only knows his thirst. He has _become_ his thirst.”

“That…” Harry spoke carefully, ponderously, as though he was trying to understand. It was Harry’s sincere effort that ultimately calmed Voldemort, because now, it was apparent that the situation could be salvaged. And if it could be salvaged, then Voldemort would salvage it. “That sounds like… like he doesn’t have any free will at all.”

Voldemort’s mouth twisted. “Does he? Would he have willingly put himself in a state of such devastation that his own thirst would become him? That what may be ordinary water to most humans would be the sweetest ambrosia to him?” Voldemort hooked a finger under Harry’s chin, lifting it, so that the sweetness was a tantalising few inches away, upon Harry’s lips. “Would you take that water away from him in the very instant he dares to hope that he will never suffer thirst again?”

“W-well…” Harry jerked his chin away, clearly flustered. “Don’t have a pity party all on your own. You’re not the only person who’s suffering. I’m suffering, too.”

“And how are you suffering, little one?” But mayhap Voldemort’s affection resembled condescension, because Harry’s eyes flashed.

“I’ve come from a war, Tom. A war _you_ started, and that I wound up on the other side of, because you tortured me too many times for me to end up on yours. Do you think you would let that go, Tom, just because I was your son? When have you ever let anything go?”

“I—”

“Quiet,” Harry snapped. “I’m talking.”

Voldemort’s teeth clicked shut.

“Your future self is the reason I haven’t been safe since I was born. So being with you now, being your… your _beloved_ _son_ isn’t supposed to be the safest I’ve felt in months. In years. Maybe ever.” Harry carded his hands through his hair in frustration. “And I’m going to lose you, lose this—” Harry waved his hands at the house around him “—this stupid fucking facade of domestic bliss, for what? A war zone where my friends are dying, and where I will die? I went from weeks of constant starvation while on the run from my mortal enemy, _to_ my mortal enemy force-feeding me obscenely expensive French cuisine at an upscale restaurant. I went from dirty, ruined, worn-out clothes to being dressed like a prince. I went from no adult ever giving a real shit about me to you protecting me from every stray breeze and thinking I hung the moon and the stars.”

“Didn’t you?” Voldemort asked in a feeble attempt at humour. “The stars especially seem like your handiwork. Delicate and bright.”

But Harry only jabbed an accusatory finger at him. “That! That. I went from having nothing to suddenly having what feels like everything… and I have to go back to nothing again. You reckon this is _fun_ for me, Tom? You reckon _you’re_ hurting?” Harry dug his closed fists into his eyes. “Fuck. Fuck, I’m—I can’t do this. I can’t, but I’m going to anyway, because I always do—”

“Why do you?” Voldemort couldn’t help but demand an explanation for this, for his son’s peculiar urge to sacrifice himself. An urge so bone-deep that Voldemort suspected Harry had been brainwashed into it from a very young age. An urge that Voldemort would have to correct. “What compels you?”

“My conscience.” Harry glared at him. “And yes, the conscience does exist, Tom. It’s not a mystical unicorn that lives only in my imagination.”

“Harry.” Voldemort had to understand this, just as Harry had endeavoured to understand him. He owed it to Harry, and to himself, to truly understand his son. “Why must it be you who fights my future self? Why can you not stay here and leave the rest of that war to my unhinged counterpart and to his doubtless many detractors?”

“Because he’s _mine_ to handle, isn’t he?” Harry huffed. “He always has been. He fucks up, and I have to clean it up. Because I’m his son. Because I carry a part of his soul. Because I’m the only wizard alive capable of taking him on.” Harry met Voldemort’s eyes challengingly. “And I have to. I have no choice; he’s left me no choice. Instead of collecting allies, he’s turned the wizarding world against him. Only maniacs and incompetents too weak to flee his clutch remain with him. He’s already died once—”

“ _What?_ ”

“—and he’s definitely lost his marbles. After all those Horcruxes… He may be alive physically, and he may have resurrected himself after his death, but he hasn’t survived mentally. Or… or spiritually. He’s just a husk of a man, a crazy, unstable husk torturing and murdering his way into the history books. Is that what you’re striving for, Tom? The grand future you’re looking forward to? Your future self can’t win, because he isn’t even himself anymore. The rationality, the _intelligence_ you pride yourself on has been obliterated. He’s an embarrassment to you. And a danger to the world. So I will stop him, because I must. Because he gave me no option.” Harry took a breath. “He was out to kill me, first.”

At that, all of Voldemort’s seething, calculating thoughts ground to a halt. “He wants to kill you.”

“He nearly killed me when I was just a kid. You’ve seen the mark of it yourself.” Harry gestured at the scar on his forehead, and Voldemort’s eyes widened in realisation. “What was I to do, just roll over and _take_ it because he’s my father? I refuse to die because daddy dearest says I ought to. I—I’ve always fought to live, and I’m not giving up now. Too many people are counting on me.”

“I’m counting on you,” Voldemort reminded him.

And Harry covered his eyes. “Shit.” He rubbed at them, as if to wipe away tears he hadn’t shed. “ _Shit_. Not you, too. How many—” His voice broke. “I can’t—”

“Harry.” Voldemort got off the settee and knelt before Harry, taking Harry’s small hands in his. Hands too small to be charged with slaying a Dark Lord. “You are not alone. You do not have to bear this alone.”

“When have I _not_ borne it alone?” Harry wouldn’t look at him, and Voldemort’s heart shattered even further with every second that his son did not meet his eyes. “I have friends, and they do try to be there for me, b-but they—they’re not the ones he’s obsessed with, the ones that have nightmares about his _torture sessions_ , the ones that have to kill him—and I’m not a murderer, Tom, I swear I’m not—”

“Harry,” Voldemort repeated, gently. His mind was illuminated, the pieces falling into place with crystalline clarity, with flawless, translucent symmetry. “I will kill him for you.”

At that, Harry did look up. His mouth dropped open. He did not speak, as though Voldemort had robbed him of speech itself.

“I will follow you into your time. Why should I not? What have I to keep me here, save for half-executed plans that I might as easily complete in your world? But you should not have to bear the burden of murdering your failure of a father, a burden that I myself bore and that I know the price of. No, you are too innocent for that, my dear; the guilt would tear you apart.” Voldemort raised his hand to cradle Harry’s cheek, which was indelibly, irresistibly soft against his wand-callused palm. “I will do it for you, and I will do it with relish. For every time he has scarred you, hurt you, sought to kill you… for each of those times, I will lash his very skin from his bones, flay him until he is a bloody, twitching wreck, and only _then_ will I kill him. Any pain that he has visited upon you shall be visited upon him a thousandfold.”

The air around them glimmered as magic sizzled through it, binding Voldemort’s promise into law.

“You just swore an oath,” Harry said, wonderingly and with a hint of horror. “You just—without even knowing if you can travel to my timeline!” Harry grabbed Voldemort’s shoulders. “That’s careless, Tom! No, it’s insane! It’s not an Unbreakable Vow, but it’ll still extract a payment from you if you don’t do it. You shouldn’t have—”

“I will find a way,” Voldemort said simply. “When have I not found a way, Harry, when I have willed it?”

“Maybe _you_ believe every atom of the universe is bound to obey you, but I—”

“No. The universe is not bound to obey me, Harry, but I will learn its ways so that I can map my route to my destination by any means necessary, including means not pursuable by mere mortals.” Voldemort smirked. “And I am no mere mortal.”

Harry sobbed, or perhaps he laughed. It was impossible to discern. “Nobody’s ever tried to take my burden from me. Share it, yeah, but not actually take it. And that it’s _you_ —” Harry shook his head, unable to go on.

Voldemort smoothed his thumb along the outer lashes of Harry’s eye, catching the wetness there before it slipped past the rim of Harry’s spectacles.

Harry was not weak to weep; he was only grieving the loss of all that he had been, all that had defined him. Voldemort understood. He would allow Harry to grieve the burden that he had carried for so many years, just as Voldemort had once carried his coffin. They had liberated each other from their respective cages, even if the resulting freedom was terrifying. Terrifying, and—as the fusing of their magical cores had proven—exhilarating.

The patient stroking of Voldemort’s thumb must have been working, because for a moment, Harry seemed relieved, lightened, at last rid of the weight that had been his duty.

But then, with the slowness of ash sifting downwards from a pyre, a bleakness settled over Harry’s features, inevitable as fate.

“I can’t,” Harry whispered. “I can’t bring you with me. You’re even more dangerous than he is, because you’re still in command of your faculties. I can’t take you back if all you’re going to do is rehash his crimes. I have to know you won’t slaughter and torture Muggles and wizards. I have to—and an oath won’t do,” Harry said quickly, before Voldemort could make another pledge, “because you could still break it, even though it would cost you. No, I need to _know_ you won’t do what he did, that you’re not the same person he is. If it was just me hanging in the balance, I wouldn’t bother with this. But it’s everyone else. It’s that entire timeline, that entire _world_ , and all the people in it. For their sakes, I can’t just take you along on a whim. I have to know you won’t harm them. And I…” Harry appeared almost regretful, here, almost ashamed. “I’ll have to test you. A test for your soul… or what’s left of it.”

Voldemort only knelt there, serene as a supplicant at the feet of a god. “Name it. Name your test, and I will pass it.”

Harry squeezed his eyes shut. His wet eyelashes clumped together. “You may not be able to. You—you’ll have to—” Harry stumbled, as if he could not bring himself to say it. As if his test was insurmountable. “—reabsorb your Horcruxes,” he concluded, finally, despairingly.

“Very well.”

Harry’s eyes popped open. “Very _well_? It’s not that easy! You have to feel remorse, true, genuine remorse for those murders.”

“I will.”

And just like that, with mercurial speed, Harry transformed from melancholic to incensed. “Oh, and you can predict your own emotions with such certainty, can you, Mister Chaotic Tornado of Angst?”

“You must cease giving me such ludicrous titles.” Voldemort paused. “Accurate though they may be.”

“You—” Harry choked. Whether he was choking on a laugh or a cry remained undetermined, because abruptly, he pitched forward to bury his face in Voldemort’s neck, leaning down to wind his arms around a still-kneeling Voldemort. “You’re a madhouse in the shape of a man,” Harry said fiercely, “but you better follow through. You _better_ , or I’ll have to leave you behind and you won’t get to fulfill your weird self-murder fantasy and magic will punish you by symbolically castrating you, or something.”

“That won’t happen,” Voldemort assured Harry, “because while we research how to go back to your timeline, you will also be teaching me Light magic. Starting with the Patronus, which I now expect I will be able to perform.”

Harry leaned back again. He goggled at Voldemort as if at a hallucination. “You—I thought you hated using Light magic.”

“I _could not_ use it,” Voldemort corrected. “I never hated it; I could never hate any type of magic, any type of power. I love it all. No, it was only that this particular branch of magic was beyond me, and thus, ever the utilitarian, I focused on what I could do.”

“Dark magic.”

“Yes. But the sustained use of Light magic may render me capable of experiencing remorse, and with you to condition me—”

“Condition you?” Harry burst out indignantly. “You’re not some animal in an experiment!”

“With you to condition me,” Voldemort continued doggedly, “I might yet manage remorse. It will be unpleasant, and complicated, and it may take weeks, or months, or years.” Now, he came to the crux of the matter. “The question is, will you wait for me? Will you trust that I can do it? That I _will_ do it?”

Harry stared at him. There was that wonder in his eyes again, the wonder that Voldemort had seen in the bookshop, after their merging. Harry’s magic was glowing, a soothing, steady glow that Voldemort’s darkness absorbed hungrily. “Yes,” Harry answered, hoarsely. And then, with a tremulous smile, he explained, “I could still go back to the point where I left my timeline, even if I did so in a couple of years. It won’t make any difference to the folks there, except that I’ll look older when I get back to them.”

“And that you’ll be accompanied by your father.”

Now, Harry did laugh—loud and uneven and somewhat hysterical. “By the handsome twin of the Dark Lord they’ve been fighting, yeah.” 

“Ah.” Voldemort preened. “So I’m the handsome one.”

Harry shoved him hard enough to send Voldemort tumbling onto the rug.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> harry, blatantly lying: i don’t like daddies—i mean men—who aren’t emotionally mature and who don’t have a high EQ
> 
> voldemort: *desperately reading ‘Emotions For Dummies’ upside-down*


	14. Chapter 14

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which actual Gobbledygook makes more sense than whatever Voldemort’s thinking about his ‘son’.
> 
> Or: Goblins! Soulmates! Pining! Idiots! Everything you have come to expect from this fine fandom, condensed into yet another ludicrous chapter.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> When Voldemort mentions [kintsugi](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kintsugi) in this chapter, he is referring to the traditional Japanese art of mending broken pottery by filling the cracks with lacquer.
> 
> I’ve limited the scope of the fanon-standard Gringotts blood inheritance test to only testing the link between the person being tested and the vault-holder, _and only with the vault-holder’s permission_ , as per privacy laws. (Otherwise, a whole boatload of philandering Pureblood dudes would have the offspring of their extramarital affairs declared heirs of their vaults the moment they walked into Gringotts, lol.)
> 
> So basically, if a person took their heir along to be registered as the official inheritor of their Gringotts vault, a test of the relationship _between them_ would be taken for security reasons, but not the relationship between that heir and literally everybody else who owns a vault at Gringotts.
> 
> Furthermore, I’ve portrayed an alliance between Voldemort and the goblins that did not exist in canon—at least, not in this fashion. That said, I do still portray Voldemort’s approach to the goblins as unpalatably colonial and exploitative, i.e. he hopes to gain their knowledge in exchange for what he sees as a pittance. That is, unfortunately, how wizards have treated goblins since the dawn of time. (Yes, I’m a pro-goblin activist. Can you tell?) A lot of what I say about goblins and Gringotts in this chapter is not canon-compliant, although some of it is.
> 
> Also! On a personal note…
> 
> I GOT MY JOB BACK, U GUISE!!!!!!1!!!11!1
> 
> So I won’t be starving to death anytime soon! Good to know. When I lost my job to COVID (as so many of us did), I began churning out fanfic to distract myself from my impending doom, because my savings were dwindling and I didn’t want to think about potentially ending up homeless.
> 
> BUT! My job is back! I am crying, I am so relieved. However, because of returning to my ridiculous fifty-hour work week, I will no longer be able to update this fic frequently. Maybe every 2 weeks or so? If that? I do feel deeply sad about that, but on the other hand, it means that I’ll be able to continue updating in the long-term instead of just suddenly disappearing from AO3 after getting evicted or something, lol. Now that I am sure I can keep paying my rent, I can keep updating steadily over the coming months.
> 
> Thank you so much for your patience and your love. You rock! Thank you also for continuing to leave comments despite the rapidly dwindling amount of time I have to answer them. I love them all, especially the wonderful multi-paragraph comments that leave me feeling like I’ve been enveloped in the fuzziest, warmest flannel blanket ever. The _love_ , you guys. The love you give me. *sobbing*

Diagon Alley in the late afternoon wasn’t as crowded as it had been that morning, but it was still lively. The sunlight had acquired a brittle orange brilliance that presaged sunset, and along the edges of the snow-laden rooftops hung icicles as bright as daggers, melting slowly and dripping from the eaves in drops that glittered like diamonds.

How _aware_ Voldemort was of all of it—the scent of winter and warm food and encroaching dusk, the sounds of children shrieking as they pelted each other with snowballs, and the taste of frost and electricity upon his tongue, the taste of January mingled with Harry’s magic. It was only a shiver away from touching, for Harry walked beside him, and Voldemort briefly entertained the idea of clasping Harry’s hand, of leading him through the throng like that, like other fathers held the hands of their sons, like lovers walked hand-in-hand.

Although it was Harry who led Voldemort, who guided him, and who was awakening him to life as he never had been before. That the mundane goings-on of Diagon Alley should be so transformed was a testament to Voldemort’s own transformation. Snow and wind and ice were all incandescent, the soon-to-be-setting sun lighting the pale sky from within, like a flame within a white paper lantern. Beneath it, the red-and-brown sign of a bakery swung and creaked, the colour-changing cakes and singing pastries in its window attracting children who pressed their noses to the glass and left fingerprint-shaped smudges as they passed.

How clear it all was, how vivid, the difference between beholding a painting and being in it. All of Voldemort’s senses were awake—his very _body_ was awake—as it had not been since he had first split his soul with a Horcrux. It was as though his melding with Harry had filled the cracks in him with a radiant, pulsing gold. _Kintsugi_.

“You’re doing it again,” Harry muttered next to him.

“Doing what?” Voldemort noted that Harry’s own hands were—wisely, given the cold—in his pockets, and thus out of reach. Maybe Voldemort could ask to hold hands; Harry had, after all, held his in Flourish & Blotts…

“Going all Lord Byron inside your own mind. Your magic’s—” Harry bit his lip. “—doing that touchy-feely thing, wrapping around mine.”

“So it is.” And why should Voldemort even ask? They were already holding hands in spirit, if not in form. So he skimmed his hand down Harry’s wool-clad arm, to the cuff of his sleeve and beyond, into Harry’s pocket, twining their fingers together. 

“We’re holding hands _inside my coat pocket_ ,” Harry said incredulously. “What’s next, tea at Madam Puddifoot’s and you crying while you kiss me?”

“Why would I cry?” Voldemort asked in honest bafflement. He couldn’t even recall when he had last cried. Certainly not in living memory. And what did Madam Puddifoot’s have to do with it?

Harry emitted a noise not unlike a collapsing balloon. “You don’t—you don’t even question the kissing, do you?”

Voldemort fondly remembered kissing Harry’s throat while their magics merged. “Why should I? You are mine, as is your every inch. I will kiss you as I please, touch you as I—”

“Stop!” Harry yanked his hand out of Voldemort’s grip, vigorously enough to stumble forward a step. “We’re almost at Gringotts. Fo… We need to focus.” Harry jammed his spectacles forcefully down on his nose. “Focus, Harry.”

Voldemort lifted a brow, even though his now-empty hand was oddly bereft. “You talk to yourself with alarming regularity.”

“Must be your crazy rubbing off on me.” Harry’s cold-pinkened cheeks grew even pinker. “Not that—there’s any—rubbing. Going on.” He flicked himself rather violently on the forehead. “ _Focus_ , damn it!”

Voldemort frowned in concern. “Harry. If you are unwell…”

“No, I’m just nervous. Right. Okay, so when the goblins take my blood, it may not—that is, I’m… not from this time? So I’m not sure my blood will, er, cooperate. Just don’t blow up the bank if the test doesn’t declare you as my dad, all right?”

Harry did not seem to know that Gringotts had one more, somewhat arcane, centuries-out-of-fashion test available to verify their bond, which would work even on time-travellers, so he decided not to worry Harry about it. Voldemort was already confident in the result.

After their conversation earlier today—in which Voldemort had sworn to avenge Harry on that other monster who bore Voldemort’s name—Voldemort had proposed giving Harry access to his vault. It would be needed both for Harry’s financial solvency while he continued to live in this timeline, _and_ as an excuse for him and Voldemort to regularly visit Gringotts together, where the source of Harry’s time-travelling was allegedly located.

Despite it making sense, Harry had been tense about going to Gringotts. He was probably afraid that he would be sucked into yet another time if he accidentally encountered the magical artefact that had sent him here, particularly if he encountered it without first mastering it. An understandable fear.

“I will not ‘blow up’ the bank, Harry. If needed, I will simply add you as an adoptive heir, although I do not foresee that happening.”

Harry considered him narrowly. “What do you mean, you don’t foresee that happening?”

Voldemort hooked his arm through Harry’s and dragged him past the Doric pillars at the Gringotts entrance.

“Hey…!”

***

Voldemort had three goblins in his employ that handled his account under the strictest confidentiality—stricter even than what the goblins were famous for, because he had extracted Unbreakable Vows from all three of them. Voldemort was a firm believer in assuring _loyalty_ , and loyalty, like everything else, could only be bought at the price of self-preservation. People, whether human or non-human, were only driven by their own gain, and the goblins were under the impression—not entirely unfounded—that Voldemort would accord them rights the current wizarding establishment did not. That Voldemort would share with them the mysteries of wandlore.

And Voldemort would… to a point. In exchange for which he would be rewarded with goblin lore, including the lore that granted the goblins their very long lifespans.

Equivalent exchange, or seemingly equivalent exchange. As long as Voldemort painted himself as an ally of ‘equality’, he would have the goblins’ loyalty. What amused him was that they bought his narrative of equality, since Voldemort’s agenda was based on the subjugation of Muggles and Muggleborns. How ready all beings were to believe that _they_ were the exception to the rule, that they were exceptional.

Only Voldemort and Harry were exceptional. The rest of humanity, and every other species, existed only to serve them.

That the motto of Gringotts itself was _Fortius Quo Fidelius_ —‘Strength Through Loyalty’—was an irony that Voldemort enjoyed, as he did all ironies. Voldemort’s strength, through the goblins’ loyalty. That was how it would be, even though the goblins did not realise it yet.

Voldemort drew himself up. “Ragnar. Nagrok. Ugron. Greetings to you all.”

Ragnar, the most senior of the trio, was a hard-eyed, mean-faced, calculating old buzzard, whose nose had as many dents in it as if he had spent all his years tumbling down an unending mountain of coins. Which was a distinct possibility.

“My lord,” said Ragnar, with the deliberate, grudging politeness of an unwilling ally. Yes, Ragnar hoped for better treatment from Voldemort than he and his ilk had received from the Ministry, but he did not trust Voldemort wholly, unlike the younger and more idealistic—for goblins—Ugron.

“My lord!” Ugron, who had been summoned by Ragnar along with Nagrok, bowed deferentially, unlike his elder.

Nagrok stayed silent, as he was wont to do; he was a Watcher, a person accorded the solemn duty of recording all that occurred in goblin political negotiations, without personally partaking of them—an impartial observer allowed to speak only to testify in a goblin court of law.

That a Watcher had been accorded to Voldemort was both a compliment—for him to be adjudged a part of the goblins’ internal affairs—and a warning, for Watchers were trained to notice the subtlest details of timbre, posture and language with a perspicacity that bordered on Legilimency. Deception would not go undetected here.

Voldemort nodded at Nagrok and Ugron, and inclined his head respectfully at Ragnar. “Erl,” he addressed Ragnar, and Harry’s jaw unhinged at this unusual gesture of respect from Voldemort. ‘Erl’ was the goblin title for ‘sir’.

Harry caught himself and bobbed politely at Ragnar, picking up Voldemort’s lead. “Mr. Ragnar, sir. Thanks for seeing us without even having us, uh, stop by a reception desk.”

“The Lord Voldemort should not have to line up at desks,” Ugron said emphatically, only for Ragnar to level at him a look so supremely bland that Ugron paled and shut up. Ragnar was too proud to accept even the approximation of subservience from a goblin towards a human.

“Come,” Ragnar barked, and the trio of goblins escorted Voldemort and Harry down to the vaults. 

The twisting, winding path was tiled with immeasurably huge slabs of marble, granite and a thousand other precious minerals known only to goblins—oh, the sheer amount of earth magic they must know, magic that Voldemort would learn from them in trade for but a few pithy laws! And then came the vaults themselves, in the chilly, echoing basement of Gringotts, with innumerable tunnels branching off the central chamber and fading into shadows darker than the cobwebbed corners of Voldemort’s dusty, unused conscience.

A conscience that stirred only at Harry’s urging, just as the long-sleeping Basilisk had stirred at Voldemort’s.

Harry was staring down one specific tunnel, and Voldemort intuited that it was down that tunnel that the Lestrange vault lay. With Nagrok watching, such a clue as to Harry’s purpose here would not go unobserved, and Voldemort cupped a careful hand under Harry’s elbow to remind him that they had company. Harry blinked back to the present, and Voldemort released him.

“I would like to add my heir to my account,” Voldemort stated imperiously, “and to grant him access to my vault, although I will not be requiring entry into my vault today. We are here solely for the registration.”

Ugron bustled over to a table with a giant, moth-eaten, cloth-bound register on it, which immediately flipped to a page with a ‘V’ at the top right corner. Ugron flipped through all the ‘V’ pages until he got to the page listing the details of Voldemort’s account. Voldemort placed his palm upon it, as usual, and the page flashed silver as it came into contact with Voldemort’s magic, finding an exact match for the magical signature under which Voldemort had initially opened his account. “Excellent, my lord. Your identity has now been verified. Now, for your son, whose inheritance by blood must be tested.” A quill with a pitch-black feather and a deadly, needle-like nib floated up from the table and towards Harry.

Harry flinched, and Voldemort castigated himself for not realising that Harry’s history with Blood Quills would make any blood test, even a test administered by a non-Blood Quill, unpleasant. “Harry, if you—”

“No. I can… I can do this.” Harry squared his shoulders. “I’ve done worse.”

Nagrok’s eyes sharpened at that, as did Ragnar’s.

Voldemort sighed. He had to tutor his son in the fine art of subterfuge, or his Gryffindor transparency would expose their secrets to everyone they ran into.

Taking note of his fellow goblins’ heightened alertness, Ugron hesitantly indicated that Harry prick his finger on the quill’s nib. “If you can supply us with a sample of your blood, we can affirm whether you are Lord Voldemort’s son.” As if to avoid giving offence, Ugron hurriedly added, “It’s a basic security measure to prevent fraud, you understand. Especially provided how many wizards can easily disguise themselves or compel others—”

“Ugron,” Ragnar snapped. “Be quiet and do your job.”

So loquaciousness was not regarded as a positive trait amongst goblins. Ugron shrivelled up like a caterpillar shrinking back into its cocoon, quailing in humiliation.

Harry immediately stepped forward to say to Ugron, quickly and earnestly, “I really appreciate you explaining why I need to do this test. I mean, I’m—I’m… new? In town? So I appreciate it, and, um, I’m also not that good with needles, so I’d appreciate your h-help with that, too? Please?”

Ugron gawked at Harry with the same gobsmacked disbelief that Flopsy the house-elf had, the first time Harry had said ‘please’ to her. Wizards were not generally considerate of goblins, either. And Harry had said the word ‘appreciate’ three times, which was likely more times than Ugron had ever heard the word in his life. Even from other goblins, if his interaction with Ragnar was anything to go by.

“Oh,” said Ugron, faintly, and went red all the way to the tops of his elongated ears and the tip of his protruding nose.

_Really._ Voldemort’s wand-hand flexed. _Really, Harry? Goblins, too?_

Voldemort knew that Harry was not as afraid of needles as he was making himself out to be; his distaste for blood-drawing quills had been subsumed by moral righteousness. Harry’s charade was all for Ugron’s benefit, so that Ugron might save face in front of his peers. How strange it was to see such a Slytherin pretense enacted so convincingly for such non-Slytherin reasons. It was this casual, unthinking compassion of Harry’s that made him so sweet, so irresistible, but it also made him irresistible to those who were utterly undeserving of him.

Like a goblin. A gods-be-damned, craven, snivelling little goblin who had no honour even amongst his own people.

Except that Ugron now stood taller—as much as his diminutive height would allow—and his eyes shone with conviction. A client of the bank’s needed him, needed his services, _appreciated_ his services, and Ugron snatched the quill from the air, beckoning Harry towards him.

Harry stuck out his hand without hesitation, even though it was the very hand upon which ‘I must not tell lies’ was carved. Such was Harry’s kindness; so dazzlingly did it blaze that it obliterated even his own fears. This, _this_ was the source of Harry’s courage—not the arrogance that fuelled Voldemort’s false bravado, an arrogance that was built on fear.

And for a moment, Voldemort felt a flicker of something like shame. A not-so-distant cousin to the shame he’d felt at La Plaque, at his realisation of how much stronger than him his son was.

Still, Harry put on a creditable show of fidgeting, of acting the frightened, coddled heir, allowing his fingers to recoil in a clever imitation of cowardice. He permitted Ugron to take his wrist—his wrist! As if the despicable creature had any right!—and to press the nib of the quill against Harry’s fingertip with such solicitous, un-goblin-like care that Voldemort seethed to witness it.

“Perhaps you ought to unhand my heir,” Voldemort suggested silkily, with pure murder in his tone, “now that the blood-drawing is done.”

Ugron almost cartwheeled backwards in his rush to retract from Harry, letting out an undignified yelp when he collided with the table. Harry glowered at Voldemort chastisingly. Not like a frightened, coddled heir at all.

That Nagrok would have noticed the discrepancy in Harry’s behaviour was unavoidable, but Ragnar must have noticed it, too, for he studied Harry intently as Harry’s blood dripped from the quill onto the register… and fizzled. It vanished before it even hit the page, leaving only a whiff of smoke behind.

Nagrok inched closer, his eyes wide. Memorising every element of what he saw.

Ragnar’s hairless eyebrows had gone up faster than Voldemort had ever seen them do; the goblin had never been so animated. “Well,” said Ragnar, with an avaricious glint in his eyes. “ _Well_. I must inform you, Lord Voldemort, that your son’s blood is not of this world.” He fixed Voldemort with a piercing gaze. “Our magic does not recognise it, nor accept it. Would you like to elucidate on this matter?”

“No,” replied Voldemort, clearly. “I retain my right, under goblin law, to not disclose any information not required for the safety and security of this bank.”

“And _do_ you guarantee that your son’s… otherworldliness… will not risk the safety and security of this bank?”

“I do,” responded Voldemort, like a groom at a wedding. It was a blatant lie, of course; he and Harry had every intention of breaking into at least one vault in this bank, if not more. “I volunteer to repeat that answer under Veritaserum.”

Harry stiffened in alarm. “You can’t—”

“That will not be necessary,” the crotchety old goblin patriarch said, as Voldemort had predicted he would. “So long as your son verifies his identity as your heir by other means.”

“The soul test,” Voldemort said, and Harry grew even more alarmed.

“The _what_?” Harry demanded. “That’s… that’s soul magic, isn’t it? Ancient magic. Dark magic.”

“Correct.” Ragnar actually smiled, a sinister smile that revealed multiple rows of tiny, triangular, yellowish teeth. “Only the soul exists across worlds, across times, unchanged. Blood changes; flesh changes; the body itself changes, for it is only a vessel. But souls transcend circumstance. They transcend death itself.” The smile widened. “I have not had the privilege of performing a soul test in eight hundred years, and that incident has remained amongst the most interesting in my memory. You will forgive me for my eagerness; the law forbids us from doing a soul test unless there is no recourse, and there is almost always a recourse. Not for you, though. Your blood is too resistant to testing.”

Harry did have the common sense to be spooked by a goblin’s ‘eagerness’, given his pallor.

“Do not worry, Harry,” Voldemort reassured him; in reality, Voldemort was as keenly curious as Ragnar was. He was about to witness the most ancient soul magic ritual in recorded history, a ritual invented by goblins and so seldom performed that it had almost become myth. “Taxomin’s description of our souls should be insurance enough; this will just be a substantiation of his claims.”

Harry dithered. “But is it necessary?”

“It is,” Ragnar explained, “because in the absence of a blood inheritance test, there is only one other bond that can be tested—the soul bond between soulmates.”

“Soulmates?” Harry tittered nervously. “Isn’t being parent-and-child _and_ being soulmates sort of… weird? As in, very weird? Depraved, even?”

“What do you imagine soulmates are?” Ragnar boomed out a laugh too loud for his diminutive size. “Youngling, you do not appear to have studied soul magic as assiduously as your sire. Mayhap you prefer the silly love-tales humans like to indulge in. But no, soulmates are those with karmic ties to us that follow us across lifetimes; they can be our relatives, our lovers, our friends, and even our pets or familiars. But soulmates are exceedingly rare, and are found only in the most intense of soul bonds, even amongst those intimate relationships. Soul bonds are the only bonds other than blood bonds that are respected by Gringotts.”

“And how fortunate that is for us,” Voldemort said dryly. “I give you permission to perform the soul test, Erl Ragnar. Please, proceed.”

“If I didn’t know better,” Ragnar remarked mildly as Ugron and Nagrok gawked in the background, “I would think that you were looking forward to this, my lord.”

“I take pleasure in every confirmation of my son’s bond to me. Can you blame me, as a father?”

Ragnar gave him a cryptic, no less carnivorous smile, and… snapped his fingers.

Nothing happened. Voldemort waited, expecting circles and pentagrams etched in ash, expecting prolonged chanting in Gobbledygook, expecting thunder and lightning, but getting… nothing.

Then, there was a _pull_ behind Voldemort’s navel, a pull like that of a Portkey’s. It was as though his innards were being tugged out of him by a hook buried in his intestines—an inexorable, merciless hook that had him staggering towards Harry just as Harry staggered towards him. Harry hunched over, tears gathering in his eyes, and Voldemort’s wand was aimed at Ragnar the second he saw those tears.

“Halt,” he commanded, his voice reverberating throughout the chamber like a roar, sonorous and deafening. The killing curse was already forming on his lips. If Ragnar harmed Harry, the goblin would be dead. _Dead_.

The pull… stopped. Harry slumped against Voldemort, relieved, and Voldemort instantly curled an anxious arm around him, shaken by how out of control he and Harry had been, puppets on strings before the force that had drawn them together. A force beyond even Voldemort’s ken.

Ragnar sneered. “Do not slay me for identifying your soul-bound, Lord Voldemort. You should treasure the revelation as a gift. Congratulations. You have a soulmate, which guarantees him entry into your vault. He can now be registered at Gringotts, though you will have to give us a name under which to register him. Nameless souls cannot, alas, have accounts at Gringotts.”

“Harrison Gaunt.” Voldemort was still catching his breath from the unpleasant sensation of having a proverbial fork stuck in his gut. But beneath the test’s lingering symptoms was a blossoming joy so intense that it made Voldemort dizzy. Harry was _his_ , his down to the very soul. Now that Voldemort had found his soulmate, he would never let Harry go. “You will teach me your wandless soul magic, Erl, and I will teach you what I know of wandlore.”

“You mean, some of what you know.” Ragnar straightened proudly. “You think yourself canny, Lord Voldemort, but I have been alive longer than all the wizards and witches you have met put together. You conspire to manipulate me, child, but your machinations will not succeed. My people have been betrayed again and again, and I anticipate your betrayal with all the vigilance I have in my bitter old bones.”

“They’re very bitter,” Ugron added timidly from behind Ragnar. “And very old.”

Harry giggled, and Ugron grinned at him shyly.

“Harry,” growled Voldemort warningly, in the very same instant that Ragnar grunted forbiddingly, “Ugron.”

Harry and Ugron shared a commiserative glance. Nagrok massaged his forehead and peered up at the ceiling as if in prayer to the goblin gods.

Unwilling to admit that he and a wizard had spoken simultaneously, Ragnar pronounced with as much dignity as he could muster, “You have a son.”

“Yes,” said Voldemort slowly. “I believe we already established that.”

“A son of your soul,” Ragnar persisted. “That is far greater than having a son merely of your blood. Yes, all parents and children have soul bonds—that is the way of karma—but few have a soul bond so deep that it makes them soulmates.”

Voldemort was not juvenile enough to puff up his chest like an ape, but he did experience a swell of pride. “My heir is, indeed, more than just my blood. He is my soul. You have my thanks for demonstrating that so tangibly.” And he _was_ grateful to Ragnar, despite the discomfort of the soul test. Like Taxomin’s commentary, Ragnar’s examination had confirmed what Voldemort already knew, what Voldemort’s own magic sang to him when it merged with Harry’s. Corroborating evidence was always valuable.

“You are welcome,” Ragnar returned, “and you have _my_ thanks for the opportunity to perform a soul test.”

“W-wait,” Harry interjected with an increasingly wild, panicked expression, “what are some examples of, er, platonic soulmates? I n-need to—that is, I’d like to, uh—hear about them. For science! Magic. For magic.”

Ragnar shrugged. “It is widely conjectured within the goblin community that Albus Dumbledore and his phoenix are soulmates. I myself witnessed such a bond between two sisters eight centuries ago, as I told you, and before that, my father witnessed the astonishing quadruple bond between the Hogwarts founders, although that bond may or may not have been completely platonic.”

Harry’s eyes bugged out. “Quadruple—”

Unwilling to give Harry the idea that there might be _more_ soulmates awaiting him, platonic or otherwise, Voldemort hastily took Harry’s arm again. “We thank you for your wisdom, Erl,” he said to Ragnar with all the genuine respect that the goblin had earned with his extraordinary feat of wandless, effortless soul magic. “But we must be leaving. We will visit again.”

“Please do!” Ugron beamed at Harry, and Voldemort scowled as he lugged his unnecessarily charming son out of the bank.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> voldemort: *continues to confuse being a daddy with being a sugar daddy*
> 
> all of us, trying to be encouraging:


	15. Chapter 15

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Demisexual Disaster vs. Bisexual Disaster. Fight!
> 
> Or, the one in which there is unintentional frottage, and Flopsy is the tiniest cock-blocker ever.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> harry after time-travelling _and_ ending up as voldemort’s son _and_ his soulmate:

When they emerged onto Diagon Alley, the sun had set, and darkness had begun suffusing the sky like ink stirred in water. The streets remained warmly illuminated, however; the lights had come on, miniature lanterns strung in bright garlands between the shops. The winding cobblestone paths bustled anew with dinner-goers. Some of the finer restaurants had greeters at their doorsteps, including La Plaque, but Voldemort had no plans of feasting with Harry, tonight. Feasting _on_ Harry, perhaps—on his lovely, luminous magic, that even now was reaching out to Voldemort’s.

It was as if, now that they had merged once, their cores were always hungry for a merging. Harry may be averting his eyes like a bashful bride as Voldemort led him out of Gringotts, but Harry’s magic was not coy in the least. It was a pulsing, needy thing, and the sensation of it seeking out Voldemort’s own magic was as heady as a shot of Firewhiskey. It was as though Harry was saying, for Voldemort’s ears alone, _Yes. Yes. Yes._

They were soulmates, after all. Harry was his, body and soul.

So intent was Voldemort on bringing Harry home—on embracing Harry in the study and fusing their magics together until it was impossible to tell them apart—that he missed the approach of an enemy. So absorbed was his magic in feeling out Harry’s that it did not alert him as it ordinarily would have.

A folly he would, regrettably, have to remedy. For scarcely had they exited the bank that they were waylaid by Azarias Smith, Auror, member of the Order, and self-proclaimed Death Eater hunter.

Voldemort considered Apparating away, because Smith was a disgusting rodent who was not worth his time. But that would be too similar to a retreat, and Voldemort would rather drink acid than give any of Dumbledore’s glorified pets the impression that he had fled.

So he stood there calmly as Smith strode up to them with that odious jeer on his pasty, vapid face. Harry, sensing the menacing shift in Voldemort’s magic, drew himself up as well.

“Riddle,” Smith spat. He had been a Hufflepuff a year younger than Voldemort at Hogwarts, and he had hated Voldemort then, too—hated him for being Slytherin, for being popular, for being Dark, and for being his wealthy aunt Hepzibah’s favourite prior to her death. Smith suspected Voldemort of murdering her, but there was no proof, nor would there ever be.

Voldemort bared his teeth. “Smith,” he said with dripping, saccharine politeness. “I hope you and yours are healthy and happy.”

Smith’s hand twitched as if on the verge of drawing his wand. “Was that a threat?”

“It was a civil greeting, Smith, not that you’d recognise civility if it bit you on your pointy little nose.” Oh. It seemed that Voldemort, too, was reverting to petty schoolboy vernacular in Smith’s company. Which wouldn’t leave the best impression on Harry, but with Smith here, it was difficult to remember that Voldemort was no longer an impoverished Slytherin halfblood constantly struggling to establish himself at a school that condemned his kind. Smith, pureblood scion that he was, had never struggled to belong, and it showed. It showed in his conceited swagger, in his vain, punctilious arrogance.

“And you’d recognise civility, would you, Riddle?” Smith’s jeer stretched nastily. “Pathetic, ill-bred, homeless orphan that you are?”

“You take that back.”

Voldemort blinked; it was Harry who had spoken, quiet and serious, his green eyes narrow and alight with righteous anger. He was beautiful—not only because he was angry, but because he was angry _for Voldemort_.

“You. Take. That. Back.” Harry didn’t pull out his wand, but he didn’t have to; his magic gathered around him like a cloak of power, an oppressive aura, a thundercloud promising to strike out with burning, obliterating lightning were its portent not heeded. Light magic at its most dangerous. “You have no idea what the _fuck_ you’re talking about.”

A pleasure so rich and sharp surged within Voldemort that it was as though his heart had been pierced by a knife, and adoration as hot as blood welled up within him. Never before had Voldemort been defended like this, protected like this. Of course, Lord Voldemort required no protection, but that Harry had offered it regardless was everything. Everything.

Smith’s hate-filled gaze swung to Harry, only to swing back to Voldemort. “So this is your ‘son’, I take it? I thought you were an invert, Riddle. Which unfortunate woman did you sire this ‘Harrison Gaunt’ on?”

Ah, so the Order had heard of Harry. Smith was, if naught else, a convenient fount of information, given that he had no ability whatsoever to be circumspect. A terrible choice of recruit for a purportedly clandestine organisation. Smith had all but announced that the Order had knowledge of Voldemort’s heir, even down to that heir’s title. So Garrick had faithfully reported Harry’s visit to Dumbledore. Just as Voldemort had suspected he would.

“Then again,” Smith continued, oblivious to his own impending doom if he followed this line of questioning, “isn’t he too pretty for a proper heir? Are you quite sure he isn’t a whore you bought in Knockturn Alley and dressed up to be your son?”

And that was _it_.

Smith dangled half a foot off the ground, choking, his throat crushed brutally in Voldemort’s fist. Voldemort had lashed out, viper-swift, to grab Smith by the neck like the wretched, puling rat he was. Only the Silencing and Disillusionment charms that Harry had hastily erected concealed them from the evening throng.

“Insult my heir again,” Voldemort enunciated, “and I will personally cut out your tongue and feed it to you. Am I clear?”

Smith clawed at Voldemort’s fingers to no avail, dangling from Voldemort’s grip like a rag doll.

“ _Am I clear?_ ”

Smith nodded as much as he could, tears forming in his eyes. He would be dead were it not for Harry’s presence.

Voldemort released Smith, and the man dropped like a sack of stones. He lay there briefly, wheezing, only to struggle back upright, his wand drawn. There were ugly, mottled fingerprints around his neck above his brown uniform’s collar. “You just assaulted an Auror, Riddle,” he rasped, half-humiliated, half-triumphant. “That is a crime punishable by law.”

“Why, then, go ahead and describe the circumstances under which you were assaulted, which you will have to do under Veritaserum if you are to file an official complaint. I look forward to you explaining how you incited a member of the public to violence by verbally abusing their child, which is also punishable by law and which will have you subjected to disciplinary action.”

Smith’s upper lip curled in a snarl. “I’ll get you, Riddle. Today or tomorrow, it matters not, but I will stop you and your unnatural spawn from destroying us all.”

“Paranoid ideation, delusions of grandeur, a persecution complex _and_ a saviour complex.” Voldemort tutted pityingly. “Perhaps the Department of Magical Law Enforcement should revise its mental health screening procedures if they are accepting applicants so incurably deranged.”

Smith shook all over, evidently so overtaken by rage that he trembled with it.

And then he disappeared. Apparated on the spot, probably to hide behind the robes of a grandfatherly, deceptively benign Dumbledore.

“Vermin,” Voldemort concluded, almost pleasantly.

Harry sighed. “You didn’t have to defend my honour like I was some swooning damsel.”

“Neither,” Voldemort put forth, “did you have to defend mine.”

Harry chuckled weakly. “I can’t believe… I can’t believe I defended _Voldemort_ , of all people.”

“Nevertheless, you did.” Voldemort’s tone was smug. “You did not seem dismayed when Smith said I was an invert.”

“Um, like, gay? I guessed.” Harry blushed. “I mean, you told me in Tabitha’s shop that you reckon most humans are ‘insipid’, but I think… I think you have a mild preference for men? It’s… it’s kind of obvious.”

Voldemort tensed. “How is it obvious?”

Harry stared at him helplessly.

“Harry?” Voldemort’s belly soured at the prospect of his Muggle-influenced son, like the Muggle-influenced Smith, having learned this specific brand of prejudice. Well, it could be unlearned. Voldemort would see to it.

“Don’t you…?” Harry swallowed. “Uh, no, maybe it’s obvious to me because of, er, the bond? The soul-bond.”

“Perhaps,” Voldemort conceded, for his own end of the bond did reveal to him what Harry’s moods were, albeit not precisely his inclinations. Then again, Voldemort had not explored the bond in detail, an oversight that would have to be rectified.

“I was pissed off at him, though,” Harry confessed. “ _Invert_? What the hell? Who gave him the right to say that?”

“It is a Muggle term, and a Muggle prejudice,” Voldemort said dismissively, relieved that Harry did not share Smith’s bigotry. Voldemort should never have doubted him; for Harry, empathy and compassion outranked any other factor in judging a person. “Not that the term even applies to me except for those exceedingly rare instances in which I find a human being vaguely alluring. In my entire life, I can count only three such individuals, two of which were unknown to me, and the third not useful enough to associate with.”

“Not _useful_?” Harry gaped. “Wh-who was it? Oh, god, please let it not be Mr. Malfoy.”

“Abraxas would have been useful,” Voldemort corrected. “For his status if not his nature. Though Morgane would have assassinated me for seducing her beloved away from her. No, it was a boy from Ravenclaw. A Corner.”

“Why is it always the bloody Corners?” Harry blurted incomprehensibly. “So, what, he wasn’t ‘useful’ despite being handsome or whatever?”

“He was a Muggleborn. I could not have been seen associating with him.”

“Right.” Harry wore a complicated expression. “I dunno whether to be relieved you didn’t date him or sad you couldn’t do it without ruining your plans for world domination.”

“Do I detect a trace of sarcasm, Harry?” Voldemort teased him. “You oughtn’t be saddened; bachelor or not, my plans are coming along splendidly.”

Harry huffed. “The world isn’t yours yet.”

“With you by my side? It will be.”

“Oh, bugger off. I’m about as likely to join you in world domination as Dumbledore is to join you for a game of croquet.” Harry frowned. “Although he might actually do that. Who can predict what that barmy ol’ codger will do?”

Voldemort’s grin was sharklike. “Are you implying that you might join me, after all?”

“No.” Harry’s denial was firm and non-negotiable. “My generation’s Smith was as much of an arsehole as this Smith, and as tall, too. But you just… lifted him. One-handed.” Harry coloured. “It must be all that Dark magic strengthening you and keeping you young, but how... How much can you lift? Just asking. Theoretically. Academically. Um. For the record.” Harry’s words grew fainter as he went on, and his eyes bigger, as if horrified by his own curiosity but unable to contain it.

Voldemort smirked. “I could easily lift _you_ , Harry, if that is what you are asking.”

“N-no!” Harry exclaimed, but he was a guilty shade of red.

Voldemort laughed as he swept Harry up in his arms, right off the cobblestones. Had the Disillusionment charm not remained in operation around them, they would’ve garnered too much attention, but as it was, they were in a universe all their own. 

Harry shrieked, first in surprise and then in laughter, as Voldemort held him aloft and whirled him around in dizzying circles. The streetlights of Diagon Alley blurred around them like fireflies in flight. Harry’s shape and Harry’s sounds were all Voldemort knew. His ear was against Harry’s chest, through which Harry’s laughter reverberated, joyous and free.

Voldemort had never experienced such exaltation. His spirit was a soaring bird, his pulse beating within him like wings. He flew. His flesh did not bind him, for it had transformed into a conduit for pure magic. Harry’s magic flooded him, a deluge that drenched him in light until he was soaked, sodden, electrified. He spun Harry around and around, drunken and euphoric, and on their sixth spin, he Apparated them home, directly into the study.

Harry squeaked as they stumbled and crashed onto the couch. The wintry chill of the outdoors was abruptly replaced by the toastiness of the study, and the cobblestones were replaced by the cushions to which Voldemort now had Harry pinned.

Harry was still breathless with laughter, his slight body quaking beneath Voldemort’s, but he gradually quietened when all Voldemort did was look at him—look at him and look at him and look at him, look _into_ him, not with the mind but with the soul.

Their eyes met when Harry looked back. An echo. An answer. A call. Voldemort could feel the bond between them sing like a plucked chord, vibrating silently but somehow louder than the crackling fireplace, louder than their heartbeats, louder than their thoughts.

Their magics had finished melding and lay heavily between them, in a state of shining equilibrium. They were submerged in that equilibrium, in its warm, sunlit sea, buffeted only by the gentlest currents. Within it, as within amber, they were caught in a profound stillness, a drugged, languorous motionlessness. Yet there was a slow undulation between them, a subtle shifting of hip and thigh.

“Harry.” Voldemort uttered the name with all the reverence he had in him, low and hoarse and worshipful. He cradled Harry’s face, brushing a thumb down his jaw and across his mouth, which parted under the slightest pressure. A hint of wetness, of heat. A glossy flash of tongue.

Harry’s eyes darkened. The breathlessness from his laughter had morphed into a different sort of breathlessness, a restless susurration of air in and out of that lush, parted mouth.

“ _Harry_.” Voldemort’s hand drifted down, over Harry’s torso, to where his cloak fell open at his trousered legs. Voldemort cupped Harry’s right leg behind the knee and folded it backwards, pressing himself closer.

The equilibrium around them rocked, once, like a boat pushed off-shore. Their magics sparked.

Harry gasped and arched up to meet him—

—when there was a loud pop and the sudden fragrance of chicken korma and basmati rice.

“Masters, dinner is—oh! Flopsy is s-sorry for d-d-disturbing!”

Another pop as the house-elf left; neither Voldemort nor Harry had even seen her, from this angle. But Harry still shoved Voldemort off him, panting. Harry’s hair was a mess, his temples damp with sweat and his robes crumpled up around his waist. When had that happened?

The loss of contact was like a bucket of ice water, snapping Voldemort out of his mindless haze. He was still athrob with hunger, his blood pounding through his limbs in a relentless, unsatisfying rhythm, but Harry had scrambled _off the couch_ , escaping to the table where the food was laid out much as Harry had been laid out before him—ripe for the devouring.

“I will kill that house-elf.”

It took Voldemort a few seconds to identify the voice as his own, so deep and guttural was it.

“No, you won’t.” Harry himself sounded husky, but there was a jitteriness to him, a furtiveness, as though he were a small animal deliberately putting the table between himself and a beast of prey. “She was just being nice by bringing us dinner in the study instead of marching us down to the kitchen or the dining hall.”

When Voldemort rose from the couch, Harry hastily picked up a plate and began piling rice on it, without even checking if all of it was going where it was meant to. A spoonful of rice spilled over the edge of his plate and into the steaming tureen of korma. 

“I’d rather have had you for dinner.”

Harry glanced up at Voldemort and then away, flushing an even darker crimson than he already had been. “I know.” He backed away towards the mantelpiece, holding the plate before him like a shield, his eyes widening when Voldemort ignored the food altogether and prowled up to him.

Voldemort bent to kiss Harry’s ear, a tender bite on the unbearable softness of Harry’s lobe, so tender that it was scarcely more than a grazing of teeth.

Harry jolted, nearly dropping the plate.

“We should merge our magical cores more often.” Voldemort smiled wolfishly, and finally turned to avail himself of Flopsy’s cooking, picking up a plate of his own.

“I d-don’t agree,” Harry stuttered. “What we should be doing is practicing the Patronus charm. It’ll change you more than… than touching me at every available opportunity.”

Voldemort hummed. “Will it?”

Harry raised his chin, defiant despite his persistent flush, despite the damp gleam of the earlobe that Voldemort had just kissed. He was adorable. “Have you forgotten your pledge to me? To reabsorb your Horcruxes and accompany me back to my timeline? You’re not supposed to be having _fun_ , Tom, you’re supposed to be reforming.”

“Why can I not do both, O strict schoolmistress of mine?”

Harry glared, and Voldemort chortled.

“After dinner, then,” Voldemort allowed generously. “We shall practice the Patronus afterwards. I must say, I am eager to see whether our Patronuses are the same.”

“I’m not,” Harry lied outright, and Voldemort had only to quirk a disbelieving eyebrow at him for Harry to chew on his rice rebelliously.

A sweet lie, as sweet as Harry’s skin, as his soul, as his magic.

A sweetness that Voldemort had every intention of savouring. Had Harry not pledged that sweetness to him, in return?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> flopsy, who has served generations of gaunts: it’s the gaunt gene iT’S THE GAUNT GENE _IT’S THE GAUNT GENE_
> 
> flopsy, popping tf outta that incestuous shit:
> 
> ***
> 
>   
> ADDITIONAL NOTES BECAUSE WHY THE HECK NOT:
> 
> When Harry said, “The world isn’t yours yet,” I almost wrote Voldemort responding with, “ _You_ are my world, and if you are mine, so is the world.” But that was so painfully corny that I literally doubled up laughing for fifteen minutes and then I had to delete that line to preserve what remains of my sanity (which isn’t much).
> 
> Anyway, just thought I’d share that particular tidbit. Because you, too, deserve to suffer through the cheesy, B-grade Hollywood romance movie that is constantly playing in Voldemort’s head.
> 
> Also, maybe you can tell that Voldemort is becoming sliiiiiiiightly more aware of his non-platonic feelings for Harry? After practically humping Harry on the couch? Not fully, consciously aware, but still. Voldemort’s getting there. In another 2-3 chapters, he’ll have his “official” epiphany that he wants to fuck his son.
> 
> That’s right. After more than 50,000 words and 17-18 chapters, this emotionally stunted dumbass will finally realise he’s horny for his heir. But will he act on it? That is the question…


	16. NOT a real chapter! More of a status update.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A letter from the author! Actual chapters are forthcoming in the next couple of weeks. I just wanted to wish you a Happy New Year, first, and talk about where I've been.

Happy New Year, dear friends! Er, at least, I hope it’s a happy one? With all these restrictions in place, we aren’t exactly allowed to celebrate as we did before, but on the eve of this new year, I want you to know that I am thinking of you and wishing you the very best. May you and your loved ones stay safe.

I know it must disappoint you that this is not a proper chapter but instead a rather awkward letter from the author, but I felt I owed you an explanation for my long absence. I don’t want to worry any of you, but I, uh, had a bit of a close encounter with death a couple of months ago? And I’ve been recovering ever since, although the physiotherapy alone has been agonising. I haven’t been able to update simply because my body and my mind were not up to it.

I am now finally well enough to start posting again, but it will be sporadic until I am fully recovered. Also, before I resume updating _Heir Apparent_ , I’ll post a gift fic that I had promised a fandom friend but hadn’t delivered. (Sorry, itsevanffs!)

If you don’t want to miss out on any other Tomarry goodness I post, I suggest subscribing to my author profile as well as to this story.

I’ll delete this weird little letter in a couple of days, so that the “real” chapter 16 is the actual chapter 16 of _Heir Apparent_! So if you happen to see another chapter 16 posted later on, that’s why.

Again, I love you all from the bottom of my heart for all the support you’ve given this story (and me!), and I cannot thank you enough for all the joy your comments and squeeing have brought me, even when I was as sick as a dog and could barely see straight. You have given me more strength than you know. May 2021 bring more _Heir Apparent_ zaniness, and may Voldemort and Harry finally get it on!

❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️

**Author's Note:**

> PLEASE REVIEW MY DARLINGS YOU ARE LITERALLY THE ONLY REASON I AM CONTINUING THIS MADNESS LOL


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